Inside The Huskies

UW's Giles Jackson Ready to Reacquaint Himself with Big Ten

The one-time Michigan transfer led the Huskies in receiving against Portland State.

Dan Raley

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Giles Jackson drew a wide-receiver start against Portland State, stepping in for the sidelined Rome Odunze, and it went well.

The 5-foot-9, 185-pound speedster led the University of Washington football team in receiving with 6 catches for 105 yards, both Husky high numbers for him, in Saturday's 52-6 victory.

He ably picked up the slack for Odunze, who topped the UW the previous week in the season opener against Kent State with 7 catches for 84 yards and a score.

Now it's time for everyone to be ready and available for a much tougher opponent with the Michigan State Spartans coming to town.

Jackson, a junior from Antioch, California, who spent his first two seasons at Michigan, will be facing Big Ten competition for the first time since he left it.

"Yeah, I'm looking forward to it," he said of the Spartans. "Last time I played them, I lost."

That was in 2020 when the Wolverines dropped a 27-24 decision to Michigan State at home, with Jackson doing his best to prevent it with 7 catches for 58 yards. 

The year before, however, he shared in a 44-10 romp over Michigan State, yet returning a pair of kickoffs only.

Jackson, with 8 receptions for 126 yards in two games, is part of a high-powered UW offense that collectively has churned out an unreal 1,142 yards of total offense and scored on 15 of 21 drives. 

The gaudy numbers haven't been a surprise to him after watching things change schematically at the UW with the arrival of Kalen DeBoer and his offensive-minded coaching staff.

"Honestly, in spring ball and fall camp, we saw something big was going to happen," Jackson said. "The offense was totally different from last year and a lot more explosive plays were coming. We knew it was going to be explosive."

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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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