Inside The Huskies

Smalls Pulls Plug on His Husky Career, Enters Transfer Portal

The edge rusher leaves after three uneventful seasons in Montlake.

Dan Raley

In this story:

Sav'ell Smalls, one of the more confounding University of Washington football players in recent times, revealed on Monday night he will enter the transfer portal, leaving the Huskies before spring football could end.

Thus closes out the edge rusher's time in Montlake, which proved surprisingly uneventful for the one-time 5-star recruit from Kennedy Catholic High School when so much more was envisioned.

His first play as a Husky freshman in 2020 was likely his best one, when he roared into the backfield and just missed sacking Oregon State quarterback Tristan Gebbia.

However, Smalls walked away from the Huskies without a career sack. 

The 6-foot-3, 257-pound junior played in all 29 games held during his time at the UW, and he drew a starting assignment as a freshman against Stanford. 

Yet Smalls never opened another Husky game over the next two seasons, finding himself at times playing behind lesser heralded edge rushers such as Cooper McDonald and Jordan Lolohea.

Over three seasons, he finished with 32 tackles, a tackle for loss and a fumble recovery. 

Again, he became a solid player for the UW, but not the elite talent that was projected. 

Smalls was one of two 5-star recruits from Kennedy Catholic High in south Seattle who signed with Washington, later joined by quarterback Sam Huard, and one of four players from that one-time football powerhouse who became Huskies. None of them made it work in a big way at the UW.

Huard and wide receiver Lonyatta Alexander Jr. transferred to Big Sky teams Cal Poly and Montana State, respectively, while wide receiver Jabez Tinae remains with the Huskies but was ruled out for the spring with an injury that required surgery. 

Smalls, who missed a number of practices recently with a foot injury, has two seasons of eligibility remaining at the college level.

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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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