Josiah Molden Focused on Building His Own Legacy

The Class of 2027 defensive back shares insight on his early recruitment.

There’s a family rule that every Molden has to follow if he wants to play varsity football as a freshman.

It starts on defense.

“Our family rule has generally been to let them only play defense if they’re going to play varsity their freshman year,” Christin Molden said. “The advantage to that is their dad gets to be their coach and they fall in love with the defensive side of the ball.”

At 6-foot and 160 pounds, Josiah Molden is already longer than his older brother Elijah and will only grow as he matures, leading to the expectation he’ll be more of a cornerback than safety when he takes the field this fall for West Linn High School in the Portland suburbs.

A handful of schools agree that the third-youngest Molden is best suited for defense at the next level. His first offer came from the University of Oregon back on May 3 before a pair of other Pac-12 schools, Washington and Oregon State, joined the hunt a month later.

“I think it meant a lot because it’s my hometown and of course my dad went there, and I already have a lot of experience and know my way around,” Josiah said of his offer from the Ducks.

UW co-defensive coordinator Chuck Morrell made the offer to Josiah after he and head coach Kalen DeBoer got to watch him at the Northwest Showcase event in Oregon earlier this month.

In addition, Molden will make the trip up to Seattle for the Huskies camp on June 16 to spend more time around DeBoer and meet the rest of the coaching staff. The family already had plans to attend the Washington camp before the offer came in. 

Excited to receive my second D1 offer from the University of Washington! Go Dawgs! @BrandonHuffman @westlinn_fb @jon_eagle @UW_Football @alexmolden @8littleMoldens @ElijahMolden24 @eforcefootball @KalenDeBoer pic.twitter.com/NLlmO7r2zV

— Josiah Molden (@Josiah_Molden) June 4, 2023

While the Molden family gets acquainted with the new staff at Washington, one program it has familiarity with is Oregon State. Beavers coach Jonathan Smith recruited Elijah Molden out of high school when he served as offensive coordinator at UW from 2014-17 and came down for an in-home visit before he signed.

Even though Josiah could choose to follow in his father and older brother’s footsteps, there is a thought that he could write his own narrative.

“I do want to be my own person,” Josiah Molden said.

His mother Christin echoed that sentiment, adding “There’s a lot of internal family competition” with Josiah receiving his offer an entire year before Elijah did at the same point in his recruitment.

Washington has offered four prospects in the 2027 class, with only two coming on defense — young Molden and Liufau Loumoli, a linebacker expected to play for Eastside Catholic. 

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