Inside The Huskies

Huskies Pull Commit from Vander Ploog, TE with a Fun Name

The Southern California recruit further upgrades a once-thin position group.

Dan Raley

Tight end Vander Ploog has committed to the UW.
Tight end Vander Ploog has committed to the UW. / UW

Vander Ploog, meet Jordan Paopao.

One catchy name to another.

One confident pass-catcher to a University of Washington tight-end coach with a stable of interesting players.

On Tuesday, the 6-foot-6, 215-pound Ploog, a 4-star recruit from Troy High School in Fullerton, California, and the Class of 2025, announced he has committed to the Huskies and Paopao, further upgrading a once-thin position now flush with job candidates.

He chose the UW after fielding a dozen offers, among them from Michigan State, Minnesota, Utah, California, SMU, Oregon and Arizona State. He's the 15th commit in this Husky class, and eighth coming out of the weekend.

In a year's time, Ploog, with his punchy Dutch name and big football frame, will join a collection of good-sized Husky tight ends who will include 6-foot-4, 235-pound Baron Naone, another 2025 commit from West Linn, Oregon; current freshmen in 6-foot-3, 220-pound Decker DeGraaf from San Dimas, California, and 6-foot-5, 248-pound Charlie Crowell from Bend, Oregon; and the old man of the group in 6-foot-6, 243-pound sophomore Ryan Otton from Tumwater, Washington.

On Chris Petersen's staff in his first go-round at the UW, Paopao previously worked with Husky tight ends Austin Seferian-Jenkins, Drew Sample, Will Dissly, Cade Otton and Hunter Bryant. it will be up to him to see if any of these guys measure up to those NFL-bound players.

Ploog certainly looks capable with his pass-catching skills. In his junior season at Troy, he caught 61 passes for 1,047 yards and 12 touchdowns for a 7-5 team. As a sophomore, he hauled in 7 passes and 5 of them went for scores.

"I don't believe in 50-50 balls," Ploog told Max Torres formerly of the SI network and now with On3. "You throw it up there and I'm going to get it."

Ploog is an accomplished 3-sport athlete at Troy so far, averaging 11.8 points and 8.8 rebounds per game as a basketball power forward, and batting .408 as a baseball first baseman and pitcher.

Anything else he can do? Any other hidden talents?

"I think I'm a fun guy to be around," Ploog told Torres.

For sure, the Husky Stadium public-address announcer is going to have fun with his name on game day.

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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