Inside The Huskies

Muhammad Goes Over to the Dark Side, Will Transfer to Oregon

The former Husky cornerback makes the unpopular decision to play for the Ducks.

Dan Raley

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Before facing Oregon for the first time this past season, cornerback Jabbar Muhammad deleted his Twitter and Instagram accounts because he didn't like what people were saying about his University of Washington football secondary.

Well, if he thought that was bad, just wait until he pulls on a Ducks uniform next November against his former team, which became reality on Saturday when Muhammad revealed a most unpopular move in Montlake — he's transferring to the arch rival.

For Muhammad, it's just business. A year ago, he left Oklahoma State after three seasons for the Huskies because the latter had everyone coming back, guaranteeing him a highly successful team with maximum exposure for his coverage talents.

He heads for Eugene because the UW has almost no one returning and, as Muhammad put it recently, he didn't want that kind of chaos.

No matter how bent out of shape certain Husky fans will become, there's no denying that this highly personable player named for a pair of American sporting legends in other sports (Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Muhammad Ali) is an exceptional football player.

In fact, it's somewhat of a surprise that Muhammad doesn't consider himself already NFL ready after starting 15 games for national runner-up UW while piling up 16 pass break-ups and earning second-team All-Pac-12 honors.

Instead, he'll play a fifth college season for his third college team, no doubt hoping to maximize his pro football opportunities even more. 

He becomes just the second football player from Montlake in recent seasons to change sides in the long-standing neighborhood throwdown, joining ex-Husky defensive tackle Taki Taimani, who used up his college eligibility with the Ducks last season. 

Muhammad shared in 36-33 and 34-31 victories over Oregon, calling the first outing one of the greatest football games he'd ever been involved in.

"My big brother told me this was a playoff game," he told media members after the Husky Stadium matchup. "That was the kind of atmosphere it gave off and we showed up."

Muhammad had 3 tackles and a pair of pass break-ups that October day in Seattle.  

A month and a half later, he settled for a lone pass deflection in the Pac-12 championship game when he and the Huskies won again, beating the Ducks in Las Vegas.

Equally surprising is this DeSoto, Texas, product told media outlets he had transfer portal options of playing for his old UW coach Kalen DeBoer at Alabama or joining his home state Texas Longhorns, for whom his cousin Malik Muhammad plays cornerback, and he passed on both to join Oregon.

Muhammad probably should begin deleting those social-media accounts right now.

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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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