Inside The Huskies

Ex-Husky Nick Harris Coming Home to Play for Seahawks, Huff

The center signs a one-year NFL deal worth up to $3.26 million.

Dan Raley

Ex-Husky Nick Harris Coming Home to Play for Seahawks, Huff
Ex-Husky Nick Harris Coming Home to Play for Seahawks, Huff /
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The Scott Huff influence on the Seattle Seahawks' offensive line began to take shape on Thursday with the local NFL franchise signing his former University of Washington center Nick Harris to a one-year deal worth up to $3.26 million, several news outlets reported.

The Seahawks' new offensive-line coach and Harris were together in Montlake for three seasons in 2017-19, with Huff responsible for moving the versatile 6-foot-1, 293-player over the ball, where Harris really excelled and was twice named as the first-team All-Pac-12 center.

A fifth-round draft pick, Harris played three seasons for the Cleveland Browns, but still hasn't really got his pro career started.

He was poised to become the Browns' starting center in 2022, only to suffer a season-ending injury in exhibition play. In Cleveland, he appeared in 40 games, just four as a starter. 

Harris came to the UW from JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano, California, and immediately played right away as a true freshman with the Huskies, starting four of 12 games, two at each guard spot, for a College Football Playoff semifinal team in 2016. Overall, he started 42 out of 50 games at three different positions in his career in Montlake.

The advantages to Harris at center are his natural strength and the great leverage he gets on opposing linemen.

A fun-loving guy, he wore a T-shirt beneath his UW jersey for the 2019 Apple Cup against Washington State that he revealed following the game and said, "We don't lose to Cougs."

So now he gets to return to his college town and play for his former coach and help open up an offense directed by Ryan Grubb, a UW offensive coordinator he doesn't know. No doubt Huff will be there to make immediate introductions.

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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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