Huskies Offer LA Receiver with Juggling Skills to Match Odunze

The swift Xavier Jordan has a Husky scholarship proposal to consider.

Dan Raley | Oct 28, 2022

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Washington Huskies

The University of Washington football program someday won't have the services of Rome Odunze, the Pac-12's leading receiver in yards per game, second-best in catches and recognized high-proficiency juggler, once the NFL comes calling.

However, Xavier Jordan might be the perfect replacement to become one of the lynchpins in the DeBoer/Grubb offense fast gaining traction in college football circles.

He can juggle, too. Go deep. Score over and over. Pluck footballs out of the air with a single hand.

On Friday, DeBoer's coaching staff offered a scholarship to the 6-foot-1, 170-pound Jordan, a Class of 2024 and 3-star recruit from Cathedral High School in the heart of Los Angeles.

At last look, Jordan led all California receivers in season yardage with 1,254 coming on 60 catches and resulting in an amazing 16 touchdowns for the 7-2 Phantoms.

While the numbers are overly impressive, Jordan a month ago did what Odunze showed two weeks ago in Husky Stadium.

On a dead sprint, the talented kid got his hands on a deep ball only to slow its delivery, saw it hovering next to him and snatched it and scored. He's a courtyard juggler with amazing hand-eye coordination, same as Odunze.

Jordan lives in a rough neighborhood, the housing projects of South Los Angeles, an existence that he detailed in story with Eric Sondheimer of the Los Angeles Times.

He's beginning to realize that football might change things up for him in big way.

"I just think if I keep doing what I'm doing, in the next 10 years, I won't be living where I'm living right now," Jordan told Sondheimer.

He clearly has some elite football skills, with possibly even more speed than Odunze and tremendously strong hands, as shown in his one-hand catches in video clips.

He caught 13 passes for 233 yards and 3 scores against La Canada St. Francis for his top receiving and yardage numbers.

In a showdown game against Millikan, which leans to the highly recruited quarterback Myles Jackson and wide receiver Ryan Pellum, who both have Husky offers, Jordan was at his very best.

He caught 11 balls for 214 yards and 4 touchdowns in helping Cathedral to a notable 39-38 victory on the road in Long Beach.

With more sure to come, Jordan currently holds scholarship offers from Arizona, Colorado State, Hawaii, Washington State and now the Huskies.

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Published Oct 28, 2022

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.