Inside The Huskies

After 44 Games and 1 Start, UW's McKinney Looks for New Place to Land

Husky safety enters the transfer portal with single season of eligibility remaining.
Dan Raley|
After 44 Games and 1 Start, UW's McKinney Looks for New Place to Land
After 44 Games and 1 Start, UW's McKinney Looks for New Place to Land

Brandon McKinney started at free safety as a sophomore, lining up alongside JoJo McIntosh in the back row, for the University of Washington in the 2019 Rose Bowl against Ohio State, a long time ago.

Little did he know that would be it. His first and only career first-team assignment.

After he showed himself good enough to open up against the Buckeyes in Pasadena on New Year's Day, but unable to crack the lineup again, McKinney became the third Husky on Friday to enter the transfer portal, joining wide receivers Austin Osborne and Marquis Spiker.

The 6-foot, 200-pound McKinney went from starter to backing up nickelback Elijah Molden in 2019 to completely dropping off the two-deeps last season, though he appeared in all four games on special teams.

With four seasons played and a season of eligibility remaining, the Orange, California, product will try to latch on with another program where he can obtain more playing time. 

McKinney, who chose the Huskies over UCLA, appeared in 44 games and accumulated 40 tackles, including one for lost yardage, and he defended a pass and forced a fumble. 

This past season, he played in all four games in a special-teams role and came up with 3 tackles against Arizona and 1 against Stanford. 

In fact, McKinney got on the field in every game that was played during his four-year UW career. He just didn't sniff the starting lineup again after the Rose Bowl. 

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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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