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After Short Season, No Combine, Dozen Former Huskies Turn to Tuesday UW Pro Day

Tightly restricted event will enable players an opportunity to to draw NFL interest.
Dan Raley|
After Short Season, No Combine, Dozen Former Huskies Turn to Tuesday UW Pro Day
After Short Season, No Combine, Dozen Former Huskies Turn to Tuesday UW Pro Day

With far fewer opportunities to show what they can do, a dozen former University of Washington football players will participate in a Husky Pro Day on Tuesday in the Dempsey Center that will be as important as any NFL football audition held on campus.

The NFL combine, normally held in Indianapolis in February, was canceled because of the pandemic.

The Huskies played just four football games and had three others cancelled at the end of 2020, again because of virus outbreaks.

For a lot of guys, this might be their only hope to catch the eye of NFL scouts and move to the next level as they get timed, measured and ogled. 

Players who will take part in a variety of drills are 2019 All-Pac-12 defensive tackle Levi Onwuzurike, 2019 second-team All-Pac-12 outside linebacker Joe Tryon and two-time first-team All-Pac-12 defensive back Elijah Molden, with each considered a high-round draft possibility.

Onwuzurike and Tryon, of course, each opted out of the past season, preferring to prepare for the draft rather than risk their health in what they assumed all along would be a short conference season.

They haven't played in a football game for 15 months, since the 2019 Las Vegas Bowl against Boise State, and need to show they're physically fit and still adept in football technique.

Others who will join them in the morning workouts are cornerback Keith Taylor, defensive tackle Josiah Bronson and quarterback Kevin Thomson.

The former Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year, Thomson joined the UW as a grad transfer from Sacramento State, made a strong push for the starting job, got injured right before the opener and never played for the Huskies.

From the 2019 team, wide receivers Andre Baccellia and Chico McClatcher, defensive back Dustin Bush and linebacker Brandon Wellington will join the others, as well 2018 safety JoJo McIntosh and tight end DeShon Williams.  

The pro day activities will be heavily restricted because of virus concerns, limiting the number of media members to NFL Films and selected others who can enter the facility and permitting only Zoom interviews later rather than in-person question-and-answer sessions. No fans will be allowed inside.

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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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