Inside The Huskies

DeBoer Extends First UW Offer to Louisiana Running Back

TreVonte Citizen decommitted from LSU the week before.

Dan Raley

Kalen DeBoer hasn't announced any staff hirings in the five days since accepting his new job, but the University of Washington football coach apparently has someone working the phones.

On Saturday, touted running back TreVonte Citizen from Lake Charles, Louisiana, announced on social media that he has received a scholarship offer from the Huskies — the first of the DeBoer era — coming six days after he decommitted from LSU.

A 4-star prospect from Lake Charles College Prep, the 6-foot, 217-pound Citizen pulled his non-binding oral pledge from the home-state SEC team 48 hours before Brian Kelly announced he was leaving Notre Dame to become the new LSU coach.

With Kelly in place, LSU is still hopeful it can re-interest the local back, considered a slasher with a good change of direction, into playing for the school.

If he ended up at the UW, Citizen would join a running-back room that just lost sixth-year seniors Sean McGrew and Kamari Pleasant to graduation, but still has six players on scholarship, including three from Texas. 

The remaining Husky running backs are junior Richard Newton, a product of Lancaster, California, who started three games this season and is now recovering from knee surgery; sophomore Cam Davis, another California from Rancho Cucamonga who started just the Apple Cup this season; redshirt freshman Jay'Veon Sunday, a Waco, Texas, product who appeared in four games; redshirt freshman Caleb Berry, a runner from Lufkin, Texas, who has yet to play; Emeka Megwa, a redshirt freshman from Fort Worth, Texas, who passed up his high school senior season to enroll early; and Sam Adams, a sophomore from the Seattle area who was injured all season.

DeBoer, who was hired from Fresno State to replace the fired Jimmy Lake, said he planned to have recruits visit the UW next weekend, but not this one, as he works to complete his staff. 

With so few seniors, the new coach anticipated a small recruiting class for the Huskies his first time out.

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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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