Inside The Huskies

Huskies Receive Commitment from Alabama Edge Rusher

Caleb Smith from Birmingham will come play for Jedd Fisch's staff.

Dan Raley

UW defensive-line coach Jason Kaufusi and Alabama edge rusher Caleb Smith pose on the player's visit.
UW defensive-line coach Jason Kaufusi and Alabama edge rusher Caleb Smith pose on the player's visit. / UW

It was as if Caleb Smith and Kalen DeBoer passed each other somewhere over the middle of the country, moving in different directions.

Smith will relocate from the state of Alabama to Washington next year, the opposite of what the former University of Washington football coach did back in January in changing addresses.

On Friday, the 6-foot-5, 250-pound edge rusher from Parker High School in Birmingham, Alabama, committed to the Huskies, choosing Jedd Fisch's program over Purdue after receiving offers from Arkansas, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Missouri, Oklahoma State and others.

Smith will become the second Alabama-raised player to pull on a Huskies uniform, joining Cam Bright, a Montgomery product who was a starting UW linebacker in 2022 after transferring from Pittsburgh.

He's the third edge rusher for the Huskies in this class, joining 6-foot-5, 240-pound Victor Sanchez Hernandez of Mukilteo, Washington, and 6-foot-4, 240-pound Devin Hyde of Atherton, California.

DeBoer's staff apparently didn't pursue Smith, who plays just 55 miles from Tuscaloosa and the University of Alabama.

Caleb Smith visited the UW this past weekend before committing.
Caleb Smith visited the UW this past weekend before committing. / UW

A 3-star recruit for the Class of 2025, Smith seemed destined to play for the UW all along once the big changing change in January took place. Nineteen days after DeBoer took the Alabama job, Fisch's newly installed staff offered the big Southern kid a scholarship and kept the recruiting pressure on thereafter.

Smith took an unofficial visit to the UW during spring football practice on April 20 and returned for an official visit this past weekend.

He comes off a junior season in which his Parker High team went 12-2, winning its first five games before losing 22-21 to Pleasant Grove, and then going on a seven-game win streak before the Thundering Herd suffered a 38-13 defeat to Clay-Chalkville in the first round of the 6A Alabama state playoffs.

Providing quickness and great length, Smith is just getting started as a playmaker. He appeared in 9 games in 2023 and had 17 tackles coming off the edge, according to Max Preps. He currently holds 21 offers.

This Alabama-Washington connection just won't end after DeBoer's hiring got things started. Smith will give the Huskies a fourth program presence from that Southern state, following former Crimson Tide safeties coach and safety Vinnie Sunseri, linebackers coach Robert Bala and strength and conditioning coach and linebacker Tyler Owens to Seattle, all of whom worked for the retired Nick Saban.

If this were a baseball trade, Smith would be the player to be named later in it once the original transaction was laid out.

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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