Inside The Huskies

Canvassing the Country for Talent, DeBoer's Staff Offers South Dakota QB

The Husky coach dips into his home state for top prospect.

Dan Raley

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Kalen DeBoer's University of Washington coaching staff has scoured the country for high school football talent, extending scholarship offers to players coast to coast.

Twenty-six states in all.

It seemed like it was only a matter of time before DeBoer's Husky recruiters would find their way to South Dakota, where the coach was raised, became an NAIA All-American wide receiver and began his coaching career that would bring him to Seattle.

On Tuesday, the UW offered 6-foot-3, 185-pound dual-threat quarterback Lincoln Kienholz from T.F. Riggs High School in the state capital of Pierre, a three-sport standout just beginning to feel the recruiting push.

Kienholz almost seems like the second coming of DeBoer in terms of South Dakota football success. Whereas the coach won three national championships for the University of Sioux Falls, the young quarterback has guided his high school simply known as Pierre to two of its five consecutive state championships. 

A three-sport standout, Kienholz now holds six scholarship offers, with Washington State only hours before proposing that he spend his college football career in the Palouse rather than in Montlake.

He also has offers from Pittsburgh, Colorado State, Arkansas State and South Dakota State.

The Class of 2023 prospect with his senior season still left to play, Kienholz has generated career passing stats of 318 completions in 577 attempts for 5,678 yards and 58 touchdowns, with 23 interceptions.

Last fall, he passed for 37 scores and ran for another 12 for the Governors, a 10-2 team. In the state championship game against Tea Area, he passed for two TDs and rushed for two more in a 30-27 victory decided with a field goal on the final play of the game at the DakotaDome in Vermillion, home of the University of South Dakota.

Kienholz and DeBoer's Dakota hometowns, with the coach hailing from Milbank, are just 200 miles apart. It's 1,200 between Husky Stadium and Pierre.

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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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