Inside The Huskies

Leaving No Stone Unturned: UW Offers 5-Star Edge Rusher

David Stone Jr. now has a Husky scholarship pitch to go with 31 others.

Dan Raley

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David "Stoney" Stone Jr. hails from Oklahoma, plays his high school football in Florida and this past season called Jayden Wayne his teammate.

At 6-foot-5 and 280 pounds, he's from IMG Academy, considered the nation's top defensive-line recruit for the Class of 2024 and has every top college football program trying to draw a commitment from him, including the University of Washington.

On Saturday, the Huskies did what at least 31 others have done before them with this 5-star prospect — they offered Stone a scholarship and then crossed their fingers for good luck.

Whoever gets this Stone mountain man-child will obtain a player uncommonly athletic for someone so large and an opinionated kid who warns everyone he won't be anyone's fool during what can be a sometimes underhanded if not slimy recruiting process.

Consider his take on the benefits of name, image and likeness opportunities, "NIL will not be the reason I go to a school to play FOOTBALL. So do not make the assumption again that I can be 'bought.' "

Yet a lot of pressure is being applied to this guy to make up his mind, with Alabama photo-shopping an image of Stone standing among its overabundance of football trophies and Oklahoma creating another of him in a stadium with a jet flying overhead as if to indicate he's landed back home. 

Just 17 years old as of November 20, Stone will take his time in choosing his college football path. He's done little more so far than pare his list of ardent pursuers to 10: Alabama, Florida, LSU, Miami, Michigan State, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Texas A&M and USC.

He has thoughts he doesn't mind sharing to the masses on this subject either.

"I do't get committing to a school then deciding to go back on your word, de-commit, or flip to another," he tweeted. "Just wait cause why commit if you have any doubt in your mind or if you can be easily persuaded?"

Stone originally comes from Del City, Oklahoma, which is a suburb of Oklahoma City and where he played his first two years of high school football.

The only connection Stone has to the Northwest is he played next to Wayne, the Tacoma product and 5-star edge rusher who left Lincoln High School and is spending his senior year at IMG in Bradenton, located south of Tampa and on the Gulf Coast. Wayne is signed to play for Miami.

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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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