Husky Roster Review: Another Cleeland Tries to Make His Way at UW

The walk-on offensive lineman received plenty of spring practice snaps.

Walk-ons Parker Cross (54) and Roice Cleeland (63) tangle during a spring practice drill. / Skylar Lin Visuals

The name is Cleeland, not Cleveland, and it's a place the University of Washington football program has visited before.

Twenty-seven years ago, the Huskies relied on Cam Cleeland as their starting tight end who would become a second-round NFL draft pick, the 40th player selected overall, and enjoy an eight-year pro career with three different franchises.

Today, the UW has another Cleeland on board in Roice, the dutiful son and a redshirt freshman walk-on offensive guard.

In stature alone, the 6-foot-2 and 297 pounds Roice Cleeland is hardly a spitting image of his old man, standing two inches shorter yet weighing 22 pounds heavier. He's trying to make his own way as a college football player against much stiffer odds.

Roice Cleeland (63) and Soane Faasolo (68) mix it up in spring ball. / Skylar Lin Visuals

This is one in a series of articles -- going from 0 to 99 on the Husky roster -- examining what each scholarship player and leading walk-on did this past spring and what to expect from them going forward.

During spring ball, this next-generation Cleeland received more of a chance to show what he could do than most in his situation. He was one of just 10 available linemen, counting walk-ons. He ran with the No. 2 offense for all of the 15 workouts, a golden opportunity not often afforded non-scholarship players.

Cleeland's father Cam emerged from Sedro Woolley, Washington, 75 miles north of Seattle, to play for the Huskies from 1994-97. A starter as a junior and a senior, he finished with 55 career receptions for 824 yards and 6 scores.

Roice Cleeland came to the UW from Vancouver, Washington, a 165 miles south of the UW, and from Portland's Jesuit High School, a football route previously taken by the Huskies' three-time All-Pac-12 offensive lineman Jaxson Kirkland.

Young Cleeland's athletic genes are much richer than what they appear on the surface. He's not only the son of a former NFL and Husky football player, his dad was on the UW baseball team, too. That's still not all of it. His mother, Mindy, was a four-year UW softball starter and likewise a Husky basketball player.

So here comes this Cleeland working to make a breakthrough as a college athlete, as an offensive lineman, at the family university, likely thinking all along he can do this.

Michael Levelle Watkins (55) and Roice Cleeland (63) go one on one during spring football. / Skylar Lin Visuals

ROICE CLEELAND FILE

What he's done: Cleeland was a 6A All-State selection in Oregon who had FCS offers from Portland State and San Diego but chose to go the walk-on route in Montlake. He redshirted his first season, not appearing in any games.

Starter or not: Cleeland's immediate goal should be simply to get into a game so his father, who's on the UW radio broadcast team as an analyst with play-by-play announcer Tony Castricone and sideline reporter Elise Woodward, can call out his name -- and maybe provide a little analysis on what the kid is all about.

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