Inside The Huskies

Husky 4-Star OT Target Fletcher Westphal Chooses Florida Gators

The Virginia lineman had 39 offers to pick from and more schools than that who were interested.

Dan Raley

In this story:

While Fletcher Westphal wore a hooded purple sweatshirt to University of Washington spring practice in April, he looked cold when standing there.

It was not a good sign for the Huskies who were hosting maybe one of the top five national recruits, if not higher, they would bring on campus.

It was blustery chilly in Husky Stadium, an acquired taste, not a strong selling point.

The 6-foot-8, 330-pound Westphal, a 4-star offensive tackle from Leesburg, Virginia, laughed easily when told by me, jokingly, that a UW stay would prepare him for a 10-year NFL career ... with the Buffalo Bills.

So it was not all that surprising that the massive Westphal on Monday announced he would play his college football in the SEC for the Florida Gators. 

Rather than come 2,700 miles cross country to play in Seattle, though the Huskies were not among his final choices — Georgia, Clemson, Michigan, Miami and home state Virginia were some of his 39 options — he chose to stay on the East Coast and travel just the 800 miles back and forth from home to the Swamp.

At least Kalen DeBoer's staff had to consider it a minor victory that it had talked him into coming all the way out to Montlake for a spring visit.

Except the unique thing about Big Fletch is he and his parents had the energy and the means to take a resounding 88 recruiting trips to 44 schools. That is not a typo.

Clearly Westphal wasn't going to make some impulsive, quick-trigger decision on a college football destination.

Fletcher Westphal, a recruit from Virginia, attended Friday's practice.
Fletcher Westphal looked cold when he visited UW spring practice in April.  / Dan Raley

No, this family was extremely involved in what can be a dreary, taxing endeavor with every college coach and recruiting service calling you and wanting something at all hours.

Westphal was the kid who messaged our Inside the Huskies/SI site unsolicited after we wrote about him and his initial UW offer to say thank you for the attention, followed by his father reaching out, which led to a brief in-person exchange among all of us ... at that windy, uncomfortable UW spring practice. 

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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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