Huskies Lose Roberts to Decommit, UW's 4th in This Recruiting Cycle

The defensive lineman from Salt Lake City had been wavering for a couple of weeks.

The worm turned.

On Tuesday, Ben Roberts, the 4-star defensive tackle from Salt Lake City, decommitted from the University of Washington and reopened his recruiting, with all signs pointing to him landing at Oregon.

Roberts, whose Twitter handle is the "Big Worm," began wavering in recent weeks, even with former East High School teammates Taki Taimani, Jordan Lolohea and Voi Tunuufi on the Husky roster. 

"This is what happens," coach Jimmy Lake said, when given a hypothetical question about any player flipping, unable to address specific recruits. "This is the challenge of college football recruiting right now."

Roberts becomes the fourth player to commit to the UW in this football recruiting cycle and pull back his pledge, joining defensive tackle Sir Mells and edge rusher Anthony Jones from Liberty High School in Henderson, Nevada, and offensive lineman Mark Nabou of O'Dea High School in Seattle.

Mells ended up with Oregon, Jones went to Texas and Nabou remains uncommitted.

It was hoped that the addition of Roberts would help offset the recruiting loss of Mells to the Pac-12 rival school. Now he's apparently adding to it. 

According to Mike Vorel of the Seattle Times, previous Husky coach Chris Petersen had four decommits total in his six years at the school. 

A large number of UW fans have heavily criticized Lake for his perceived lack of success with this 2022 recruiting class. 

"It's a problem for everybody," the coach said following Tuesday's practice. 

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