Inside The Huskies

Huskies Get in Line with Offers for Elite 2026 Linemen

PJ Carey and Felix Ojo count the UW among 37 and 38 scholarship proposals, respectively.

Dan Raley

PJ Carey, a recruit from New York and now at IMG in Florida, has a UW offer.
PJ Carey, a recruit from New York and now at IMG in Florida, has a UW offer. / Tennessee

Scholarship offers from the University of Washington football program and everyone else playing the recruiting game, as one director of player personnel pointed out, are little more than distributed business cards, passed around to enable extended conversations between targeted players and the school.

Places such as the UW make offers in the dozens each year, with most of them, of course, not coming to fruition in terms of a commitment. It's merely a chance for the Huskies to get themselves out there as serious players in the annual talent grab while the elite recipients get a chance to say they have two dozen to three dozen offers.

That said, Jedd Fisch's guys got in line and extended offers on consecutive days this past week to two of the most sought after players in the Class of 2026 -- defensive lineman Preston "PJ" Carey originally from East Northport, New York, and now Florida's IMG Academy and offensive lineman Felix Ojo from Mansfield, Texas.

Felix Ojo has the UW among 38 scholarship offers.
Felix Ojo has the UW among 38 scholarship offers. / Ojo

Carey revealed how the UW offer was his 37th from a Division I school, Ojo going him one better with the Huskies giving him No. 38 and counting.

Generally in the past, the Huskies have shied away from pursuing a player that everyone bids on, considering the typical long-odds recruit something of a waste of time.

However for Fisch, and Kalen DeBoer before him, it's all good public relations in aiming high in competition against the nation's powerhouse programs, figuring you won't become a perennial Top 10 team and a consistent FBS presence unless you act like one.

The 6-foot-5, 300-pound Carey and 6-foot-7, 283-pound Ojo each are just 16 years old, coming off sophomore seasons that helped stamp them with national reputations. Each could be a 5-star recruit before they exhaust the process.

Carey, who looks a lot older than his 16 years, played his freshman and sophomore football seasons at St. Anthony's High School on New York's Long Island before deciding last December to take his game south to IMG in Bradenton, Florida, to what he has referred to in social media posts as "the national team."

For a 6-4 St. Anthony's entry, he appeared in six games and stacked up 33 tackles, which included a pair of tackles for loss and a sack. As a freshman, he had 57 tackles in nine games for a state championship team. Again, it's all about football potential right now.

Playing for Lake Ridge High School halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth, Ojo drew the attention of the Huskies and 37 others in spite of playing for what resembled the Bad News Bears -- his Eagles team finished a dismal 0-10 in 2023.

It just shows how much more concentrated college recruiting has become, with the experts finding this talented kid amid all of the losses. Texas likes what it sees, already having Ojo in for an unofficial visit.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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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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