Inside The Huskies

The Position Husky Football Most Urgently Needs to Fill

Landen Hatcheet appears back in the fold, but more bodies are needed where he plays.

Dan Raley

In this story:

On Sunday morning, Landen Hatchett posted a simple message on social media — "Go Dawgs" — that seemed to indicate he's withdrawing from the transfer portal and will be resuming his University of Washington football career.

If that's his intention, this is uplifting news for Jedd Fisch's new coaching staff, which will retain one of the Huskies' most promising players on the roster.

The 6-foot-2, 310-pound center from Ferndale, Washington, comes off a first season in Montlake in which he appeared in nine games and was named the UW's Most Outstanding Freshman.

However, there's still this pressing little matter at his position to consider: Hatchett currently is the only Husky center with a scholarship, is recovering from December knee surgery and his chances of being ready to play when next season begins in just over seven months are uncertain at best.

His position, similar to all of them across the UW offensive line, could use another body or two to provide some depth, if not a spring starter.

Last season's No. 1 center Parker Brailsford is transferring to Alabama and will rejoin coach Kalen DeBoer. Hatchett's brother, Geirean, who played all five positions up front, recently left the UW program for parts unknown, entering the transfer portal but not indicating if he'll even play football again.

Similar to quarterback, the Huskies didn't have a scholarship player on the roster at the center position for more than week as these players considered their options.

Now they have one with enormous potential, but he's still facing months of rehab ahead of him.

So what to do about center?

For several seasons, the Huskies haven't found themselves in this sort of lean position in finding someone to snap the ball for the No. 1 offense. Typically they've always had multiple people ready to go or can instantly move over someone versatile from guard, such as Coleman Shelton, Nick Harris, Luke Wattenberg and Corey Luciano.

Fisch's new coaching staff knows it can't throw just anyone into this role either. This player needs to be able to make calls at the line of scrimmage in a forceful manner, snap the ball most of the time in shotgun formation with absolute precision and consistently move people out of the way.

Brailsford was very good at all of this, shifting over from offensive guard and starting in the center spot for the final 13 games in place of senior Matteo Mele, who suffered a season-ending biceps injury.

With or without Brailsford, Landen Hatchett appears to have all the makings of a top-level center, but he needs to get fully healthy to take over this domain. He likely misses the heavy lifting of spring football because of that healing knee.

The best options might be Zach Henning, a 6-foot-5, 292-pound redshirt freshman from Centennial, Colorado, who came physically ready to play and made a couple of game-day appearances at offensive guard, and 6-foot-4, 299 junior offensive guard Gaard Memmelaar, who's coming off his own knee surgery that made him miss all of last season.

The UW offensive-line scholarship numbers are way down at the moment.

Henning and Hatchett come from the same recruiting class that also includes 6-foot-8, 290-pound Soane Faasolo, 6-foot-5, 327-pound Kahlee Tafai and 6-foot-7, 259-pound Elishah Jackett, all in strength and size development with most of them looking like tackles in the making.

The only other scholarship lineman is 6-foot-6, 296-pound junior Samuel Peacock, but he's been working at tackle for a couple of years now and was injured when last season ended.

Fisch and his coaching staff will need to hustle to uncover another center or two for spring football.

Go to si.com/college/washington to read the latest Inside the Huskies stories — as soon as they’re published. Not all stories are posted on the fan sites.

Find Inside the Huskies on Facebook by searching: Inside Huskies/FanNation at SI.com or https://www.facebook.com/dan.raley.12

Follow Dan Raley of Inside the Huskies on Twitter: @DanRaley1 or @UWFanNation or @DanRaley3

Have a question, direct message me on Facebook or Twitter.

Published
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.

Home/Football