After Season With Miami, Jayden Wayne Chooses to Finish Up at UW

The edge rusher from Tacoma will have three years of eligibility with the Huskies.

Dan Raley | Apr 30, 2024

Jedd Fisch will bring Jayden Wayne home from Miami. / UW

After a season in South Beach, and two years in all in the sunshine state of Florida, edge rusher Jayden Wayne revealed on Tuesday he will come home, embrace the rain once again and play for the University of Washington football team.

Almost gleefully, the Huskies have gained the services of a 6-foot-6, 245-pounder player from Tacoma who became a 4-star national recruit pursued by nearly every major college football program and chose Miami, passing on the UW and everyone else more than two years ago.

His decision to play for the Hurricanes was seen as one of the great failures of the Jimmy Lake coaching era, especially since Wayne was a frequent visitor to Montlake during his time at Lincoln High School before he spent his senior year playing for IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida,

This past fall, Wayne appeared in eight games for the Mario Cristobal-coached Hurricanes and started his final outing iin late December, against Rutgers in a 31-24 loss in the Pinstripe Bowl in the Bronx, New York. Miami finished the season a disappointing 7-6 after opening 4-0.

The highly regarded defender entered the transfer portal after completing spring football at Miami, and he attended Saturday's Husky practice as part of an official visit, and was later shown in photos with coach Jedd Fisch and defensive coordinator Steve Belichick.

Wayne will have three seasons of eligibility at the UW once he joins the team for fall camp.

His roster addition is seen as recruiting breakthrough on two fronts: Not only is he an edge with plenty of potential, he'll give the Huskies an accomplished, locally-produced player whereas recruiting for every FBS program is moving away from homegrown talent more and more and taking on a national approach, especially with the portal such a factor now.

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Published Apr 30, 2024

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.