McMillan's Undecided, But Says There's Unfinished Business at UW

While determining his future, the Husky receiver said he's playing in the Alamo Bowl with no thought of sitting out.

Dan Raley | Dec 16, 2022

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Washington Huskies

Jalen McMillan is usually as serious as his bookend University of Washington wide receiver Rome Odunze is fun-loving. Point blank rather than earning brownie points. Stoic rather than smiling.

Oh, that doesn't mean that McMillan can't crack a joke or flash a grin in the aftermath of a big Husky victory, but more often than not you get the sense that he's always on an important mission.

Such is the case when this 6-foot-1, 186-pound sophomore from Fresno, California, is peppered with a series of rapid-fire questions about him and his future football prospects a little less than two weeks away from playing the Texas Longhorns in the Alamo Bowl.

Let's get right to it: McMillan was asked if he had given any thought to sitting out this Dec. 29 bowl outing in San Antonio, such as college players all over the country are doing with their postseason outings, simply to protect his NFL interests?

"I'm playing in this game 100 percent," he said. "There's really no ups and outs. I want this win."

McMillan, coming off a team-leading 71 catches and 8 touchdowns, while supplying 1,040 receiving yards, the latter 48 shy of Odunze, was quizzed about whether or not he'll be returning for the 2023 college football season and what factors enter into that.

"What plays into my decision is just my confidence in myself," he said. "I feel like there's unfinished business here at U-Dub. But then again, I'm still, you know, talking to my family and still deciding on what I should do. It's all in the works."

Jalen McMillan's greatest catch of the season, from among his team-leading 71 receptions, might have been this 47-yard, over-the-shoulder grab in the 39-28 victory over Michigan State.

Four and a half minutes into the game, sophomore Jalen McMillan opened the scoring against Arizona with a 23-yard scoring catch in the UW's 49-39 win over the Wildcats.

Jalen McMillan scored the first two of his 8 receiving touchdowns for the season on a 13- and 10-yard scoring catches against Kent State, a 45-20 season-opening win.

Getting the season off to a brilliant start, Jalen McMillan caught 5 passes for 87 yards and 2 touchdowns at Husky Stadium against the Kent State Golden Flashes in the opener.

The Huskies' Jalen McMillan and Rome Odunze have combined for 141 catches, 2,128 yards and 15 touchdowns so far, becoming the first pair of UW receivers to top 1,000 yards in the same season.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN / Skylar Lin Visuals

Jalen McMillan caught a season-high and career-best 84-yard touchdown pass against Portland State, getting loose from this defender and racing up the sideline to the end zone in the Huskies' 52-6 victory.

Picking up a first down against Arizona, Jalen McMillan lets everyone know by offering his own signal. He had 6 catches for 77 yards and a score against the visitors from Tucson.

Shown chest-bumping, running back Cam Davis and receiver Jalen McMillan this season have combined to score 21 touchdowns, continually following each other into the end zone.

WHERE'S THE CHAINSAW? / Skylar Lin Visuals

Two Oregon State defenders try to cover Jalen McMillan, who had 4 catches for 59 yards on an extremely windy night in Husky Stadium in a game the UW won at the end, 24-21.

Jalen McMillan finished second in the Pac-12 in total catches to Arizona's Jacob Cowing, with 71 grabs to the Wildcat receiver's 85. However, McMillan had six more yards (1,040) and one more TD (8) than his fellow pass-catcher in Tucson.

Does Husky quarterback Michael Penix's very public announcement that he'll be signing up for another season impact McMillan at all?

"Knowing he's coming back, it provides me with so much comfort," he said. "Having a guy like Mike back there, so poised, is what I need, what we all need."

With those 71 receptions of his and other high-end pass-catching stats, isn't that enough to sell the NFL on your talents right now? Wouldn't that make early entry into the draft almost a given?

"Not yet," McMillan said. "I feel like I have a lot of things to do still. I feel like I haven't accomplished everything I wanted to do before I came to U-Dub."

And, finally, will it prove intriguing to him, with so many Husky teammates caught up in in the same situation of deciding whether to use remaining eligibility or go straight into the draft, to learn who does what?"

"It's alway interesting," McMillan said, who's a fourth-year UW player. "I came in with these guys. Seeing them be just so young and evolve into NFL-caliber builders is pretty insane."

While anything is possible, it just sounds from the tone of his responses that it should be no surprise whatsoever, with or without Odunze, if McMcMillan chooses to play another season in Montlake.

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Published Dec 16, 2022

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.