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Inside The Huskies

Dog Day Afternoon: Corner Picks Huskies Over Bulldogs

Censere Gaylord plays for Florida's IMG but is originally from Southern California.
Dan Raley|
Censere Gaylord had Georgia, Georgia Tech and UW among his final choices.
Censere Gaylord had Georgia, Georgia Tech and UW among his final choices. | Georgia

In finishing up his official recruiting visits over the past month, Censere Gaylord must have felt like he was going from one animal shelter to the next.

He mixed with Huskies, then Bulldogs.

Everybody was barking at him, hounding him, encouraging the 4-star cornerback to come to their school.

At his final stop, Georgia even sat him down for a photo op and had him hold up a sign that read "Beware of Dawg."

On Saturday, Gaylord from IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, finally put all of the canine-themed recruitment to bed by selecting the University of Washington over Georgia, plus a mascot outlier among his three finalists, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

"It was be a pro -- a lot of pros come from there," Gaylord said on the CBS Sports YouTube channel. "It's DBU."

The defensive back became the Huskies' 24th commitment for the Class of 2027, 11 of whom are defensive players. Thirteen are deemed 4-star prospects.

Gaylord also helped upgrade the one position area in which Huskies had struggled with throughout this Class of 2027 cycle, finally giving them a second cornerback to go with 3-star Maurice Williams of Graham, Washington.

The UW earlier had watched highly recommended coverage guys in Jailen Hill go to Nebraska, Evan Mack to Arizona, and Geovani Henley and Kamil Loud both to California, rather than choose a Montlake career.

One of the stumbling blocks here might have been the fact the Huskies stocked up on this position with four cornerbacks in the previous class, including a Gaylord teammate at IMG in Ksani Jiles. Others were Jeron Jones, Elijah Durr and Rahsjohn Duncan. All but Durr graded out as 4-star players.

The 6-foot, 170-pound Gaylord emerged from a 2025 season in which he finished with 22 tackles, a tackle for loss, a forced fumble, 5 pass break-ups and 4 interceptions, with one of the pass thefts returned for a touchdown. He played for a 9-0 team that was ranked No. 1 in Florida and seventh nationally.  

As a sophomore, he supplied 12 tackles, a TFL, 5 PBUs and 3 interceptions, returning one of them for a score, too, for IMG.

Gaylord certainly knows his way to the end zone on defense. He's come up with a pick-six in each of his three high school seasons, including his freshman year at Bishop Alemany, which is located north of Los Angeles in the suburbs.  

His interception touchdowns each have been electrifying, in order, covering 105, 82 and 95 yards to the end . 

This is one dog who knows how to play fetch.

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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.