As Preseason Honors Are Doled Out, Odunze Seems Underserved
The University of Washington football team will trot out the Pac-12's most decorated returning player in veteran offensive tackle Jaxson Kirkland, a two-time, first-team all-conference selection.
The Huskies boast a defender who two years ago built an instant national following in edge rusher Zion Tupuola-Fetui, who flourished as a sack master and a third-team Associated Press All-America pick.
The UW might have the most underestimated player across the league, too — Rome Odunze.
Big, fast, sure-handed. Also miscast, misjudged, misappropriated.
As the different media outlets release their Pac-12 talent assessments in the three-month lead-up to everyone's season openers, Odunze draws some attention, just not the spotlight. Not even on his own team. Not even in his own UW position group.
Odunze is a 6-foot-3, 201-pound pass-catcher, sort of a slightly shorter and softer built DK Metcalf, an impressive looking physical specimen nonetheless.
Yet he's one of those players whose reputation hasn't fully gotten off the ground because he played two seasons in a poorly designed offense, dealt with injuries that limited him to seven starts in 2021 and often is overlooked in favor of teammate Jalen McMillan.
Athlon Sports magazine selected Odunze to the fourth unit of its preseason All-Pac-12 team.
SportsPac12 projects him as the league's ninth-best receiver, trailing among others four USC pass-catchers and McMillan.
What the prognosticators are missing here is Odunze and McMillan are about to play in the league's most wide-open attack, in new UW coach Kalen DeBoer's receiver-favoring spread offense, imported from Fresno State.
If all goes well, these two Husky bookend pass-catchers stand to put up huge numbers, stuff that makes you an automatic first-team, All-Pac-12 choice.
Odunze might even become DeBoer's next Jalen Cropper, another overly gifted receiver who last season led Fresno State with 85 receptions for 899 yards and 11 touchdowns last fall and returns for his senior year with a new and old coach in Jeff Tedford.
For those who have forgotten, Husky spring football came to an end in April with a 50-yard touchdown pass from Indiana transfer Michael Penix Jr. to Odunze that seemed effortless on both ends.
Of the eight receivers projected ahead of Odunze by SportsPac12, the Husky standout is bigger than all of them except UCLA's Jake Bobo, a Duke transfer who measures 6-foot-5 and 215 pounds yet isn't nearly as athletic as Rome.
The thinking is the wraps finally come off Odunze, who turned 20 last Friday and is ready to move up, as the ball is repeatedly thrown in his direction this season and he doesn't look back.
A fourth-unit, all-conference selection, in time, might seem a little ridiculous for this Husky playmaker.
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