Inside The Huskies

Ex-Husky Mish Powell Comes Up With Miami Pick-6

The former UW defensive back collects his team-leading fifth interception.

Dan Raley

Florida A&M's Koby Gross (6) gets taken down by former Husky turned Miami safety Mishael Powell (0).
Florida A&M's Koby Gross (6) gets taken down by former Husky turned Miami safety Mishael Powell (0). / Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

No one except Ivy League schools wanted to give Mishael Powell a college football scholarship when he emerged from Seattle's O'Dea High School as a secondary recruit.

Not the University of Washington. Not Miami. Not one of the FBS schools. So he walked on in Montlake, even starting three games while playing for free.

It wasn't until Kalen DeBoer was on the job as the Huskies coach for five weeks that he made it one of his first orders of business to find financial aid for this 6-foot-1, 210-pound defender who could effortlessly play cornerback, safety and nickelback.

Powell turned that scholarship trust into two seasons of full-time starting, including all 15 outings on the UW's way to last year's CFP national championship game against Michigan. During that glorious run, he rescued a 15-7 victory over Arizona State with an 89-yard interception return for a touchdown.

End of story, right?

Powell actually was just getting started. Somewhat surprisingly, this Seattle native, who had worked so hard to show that he belonged at the UW, transferred to Miami once the DeBoer coaching tenure came to an end and he left for Alabama.

The defensive back didn't want to just show the home folks he could play at a high level, he wanted to make sure the entire college football world knew this.

On Saturday for the Hurricanes, Powell stepped in front of a Hank Bachmeier pass and ran 76 yards for another pick-6 to put Miami ahead of Wake Forest 17-7 in the second quarter and help send his team on the way to a 42-14 victory.

Bachmeier was another West Coast transplant, coming to his ACC school from Boise State, so it's possible Powell was no stranger to him.

This marked Powell's team-leading fifth interception of the season for 143 return yards. Earlier, he went 67 yards with a pass theft against Florida, though he didn't score that time.

Powell became the second ex-UW defensive back to come up with a pick-6 over the past two weekends, with Davon Banks, now at Boise State, going 70 yards to the end zone against San Jose State.

He entered the Wake Forest game ranked 11th in the country in interceptions, a position that no doubt will jump significantly once the weekend of college play is complete.

While Powell could have stayed put and played a sixth season at the UW as part of a rebuild, he's joined a team that's now 10-1 and the football platform for him has been limitless, with the East Coast exposure certainly enhancing his NFL prospects.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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/Husky Legends