Shaw Returns to Indiana to Show Hoosiers How He's Turned Out

The defensive back is making a lot of progress this season, too.

Jordan Shaw celebrates a win over Northwestern. / Skylar Lin Visuals

Throughout the years, in-the-know University of Washington football coaches will tell you there's nothing better than having a polished Los Angeles-produced defensive back, who's eventually headed for the NFL, manning your secondary.

Dana Hall, Charles Mincy, J.C. Pearson, Dashon Goldson, Sidney Jones and Trent McDuffie each was that guy for the Huskies.

They showed off exceptional speed and covered a lot of ground in Montlake, knocking down endless passes and streaking into the end zone with alert pick-sixes.

To no surprise, the UW relies on this prototype player more than ever with this year's team, counting safeties Kamren Fabiculanan and Makell Esteen, cornerbacks Ephesians Prysock, Thaddeus Dixon and Elijah Jackson, and nickelbacks Dyson McCutcheon and Jordan Shaw as SoCal imports collectively filling important roles for the Huskies.

Shaw might be the best of all of them now taking the field for Jedd Fisch's defense. He's certainly on a fast track. He finds great comfort in his football surroundings.

"I feel like they let me play free and they're developing me at the same time," he said of the current Husky staff.

Originally Shaw committed to Colorado but changed course when Deion Sanders took over as coach and he didn't like the vibe. He played as a freshman at Indiana last season and started a couple times, and now opens regularly as a redshirt freshman nickel for the UW.

Returning to Bloomington this weekend, he's eager to face his former teammates on Saturday -- on his birthday -- and maybe spoil everything by upsetting the nation's 13th-ranked and unbeaten Hoosiers (7-0 overall, 4-0 Big Ten).

"That's a big game for me," said Shaw, who turns 20 this weekend.

A year ago, Indiana brought him to the Midwest and intended to ease him into his college football career and redshirt him. That plan lasted until the seventh game when sixth-year senior and team captain Noah Pierre went down with an injury in the secondary.

Shaw got shoved onto the field against 10th-ranked Penn State on the road before a crowd of 100,000-plus at Beaver Stadium and didn't freak out. He held his own in game that was tied 24-24 with three minutes left before the Nittany Lions pulled out the win.

“We threw him out in the deep end at Penn State, and he didn’t falter under all that pressure,” then Hoosiers cornerbacks coach Brandon Shelby told Indiana Hoosiers on SI. “He went out there and had ice water in his veins."

The following week, Shaw made his first college start at Wisconsin. It went very well. In a 20-14 victory, he shared the Hoosiers lead in tackles with 9, had a key third-down pass break-up and finished with a team-high 84.5 defensive grade per Pro Football Focus.

He also started the following week against Illinois and came up with a pair of tackles in a 48-45 overtime loss, and played as a reserve in a 24-21 defeat to Michigan State before the coaching staff shut him down to preserve his eligibility in what would be a lost 3-9 season. Yet he had showed them plenty.

"Sometimes guys are just ballplayers," Shelby said, "and it’s in his DNA.”

Jordan Shaw warms up Indiana last season. / Rich Janzaruk/USA TODAY Sports

Yet Shaw exited Indiana and entered the transfer portal after Tom Allen's coaching staff was fired, choosing to not wait around and find out what the newly hired Curt Cignetti was all about. He signed with Jedd Fisch's staff at Arizona and followed those coaches to the UW. They had a lengthy connection going back to 2021.

"We really liked him as a high school player," Fisch said. "We got on him a little bit late. We were just kind of transitioning into being able to have an impact in Southern California. That was after our first year at Arizona. We tried to get him at the last second to come over to us."

Shaw had been to Montlake before. Jimmy Lake's Husky staff offered him and brought him in for a visit in 2020 when he was just a sophomore for St. Pius X-St. Matthias Academy in Downey, California, just outside of Los Angeles. As the son of former Michigan wide receiver Russell Shaw, he had great bloodlines. His resume was fairly impressive, too.

As a junior and a senior, Shaw intercepted 16 passes and scored on a pick-six, and found the end zone for 22 offensive touchdowns and six more on special teams. In his final season, he was named Del Ray League Most Valuable Player, was considered a top 75 prospect at cornerback and selected to play in the 2023 All-American Bowl at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

Jordan Shaw makes a tackle in the Huskies' win over Eastern Michigan. / Skylar Lin Visuals

This fall, the 6-foot-1, 173-pound Shaw has appeared in all seven games for the Huskies, starting five and coming off the bench in the others when the Fisch staff opted to open with three linebackers. He's been productive, collecting 5 pass break-ups and 18 tackles, including a pair of tackles for loss. The UW likes to periodically send him hellbent off the edge on a quarterback blitz.

Shaw, for all of his college football travels, has settled in with the Huskies. Even with Indiana's turnaround success, the UW suits him. It didn't hurt that quarterback Michael Penix Jr. went from the Hoosiers to Seattle and found football comfort. They follow each other on Instagram.

"I'm here for good," he said. "Going from the East Coast to the West Coast, it just feels like closer to home."

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