Inside The Huskies

Husky Reserve Edge Rusher Maurice Heims Opts for Transfer Portal

The German player came to the U.S. specifically to pursue a football career.

Dan Raley

Maurice Heims, UW edge rusher, has entered the transfer portal.
Maurice Heims, UW edge rusher, has entered the transfer portal. / Skylar Lin Visuals

Maurice Heims was the grand experiment, a German kid who came late to American football, but he went all in by leaving Europe for a Southern California high school and then on to the University of Washington.

On Tuesday, the 6-foot-5, 263-pound junior edge rusher from Hamburg -- which is a 4,910-mile nonstop flight from Seattle -- decided it was time to try another avenue to advance his college football career by entering the transfer portal next week.

Heims leaves the Huskies after appearing in 30 games over three seasons after redshirting, mostly as a special-teamer, in fact taking the field to cover the opening kickoff at Oregon and more this past weekend. He had 9 career tackles, including 2 tackles for loss and a 2022 sack against Colorado.

As can often be the case with a change in coaching staffs, Heims seemed to regress some with Jedd Fisch and his people taking over the program. He no longer turned up in the rotation as an edge rusher on game day.

While he had plenty of size for the position, Heims appeared somewhat limited in his athleticism compared to his Husky peers.

Still, Heims made the ultimate sacrifice to pursue American football, enrolling at Santa Margarita Catholice High School, southeast of Los Angeles, and going a couple of years without seeing any family members.

He also had the misfortune of injuring his neck during 2023 spring football and needing to be taken by an emergency vehicle to a Seattle hospital for further evaluation. The mishap made him miss a lot of practice time but didn't prevent him from playing for the Huskies' 14-1 team that advanced to the CFP national championship game.

Heims seemed an obvious choice for the transfer portal when, with a year of eligibility remainiing, he took part in Senior Day ceremonies before the UW-UCLA game.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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