Inside The Huskies

Huskies Extend Offer to Wake Forest Cornerback in Transfer Portal

The UW is out trying to shore up its defense for 2023.

Dan Raley

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With the transfer portal season in full swing and as crazed as ever, Kalen DeBoer's University of Washington football team not surprisingly is out shopping for a veteran cornerback.

On Tuesday, the Huskies offered a scholarship to Wake Forest's Gavin Holmes, who's also being pursued by Texas, Kansas, Ole Miss, Baylor, Memphis, Houston, Tulane, Virginia Tech and Arkansas.

Holmes entered the portal last Thursday rather than stick around and learn where his 7-5 Demon Deacons were headed for a bowl game — they were selected to meet Missouri in the Gaspirilla Bowl on Dec. 23 in Tampa, Florida. He has two seasons of eligibility remaining.

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A 6-foot-1, 200-pounder from New Orleans, Holmes comes off a sophomore season in which he played and started in all but one game for his ACC team, made 23 tackles and led his team with 9 pass break-ups.

Comparatively, the Huskies' leader in PBUs this season was Husky hybrid Dominique Hampton and interestingly defensive tackle Tuli Letuligasenoa, who each had 4, with the wily lineman swatting down all of his at the line of scrimmage.

As a freshman in 2020, Holmes appeared in three games, started once against Syracuse, and intercepted a pass and returned it 32 yards for a touchdown against the Orange in a 38-14 victory.

In 2021, he became a full-time starter and finished with 19 tackles, including 3 tackles for loss, and 4 PBUs and an interception in the Gator Bowl against Rutgers for an 11-3 team.

The attraction to Holmes is he plays physical in coverage and is similarly athletic, with 4.52-second 40-yard dash speed and a 37-inch vertical leap.

His Wake Forest team began this past season 6-1 before losing four of its final regular-season games.  

The Huskies took a pair of ACC players following last season who worked out well in Montlake in Virginia running back Wayne Taulapapa and Pittsburgh linebacker Cam Bright, with both sixth-year seniors becoming UW starters.

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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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