Inside The Huskies

DeGraaf Makes Watch List, Tries to Get Hands on Mackey Award

The Husky tight end is one of 46 players named to the watch list just released.
Dan Raley|
Decker DeGraaf just missed catching a touchdown pass at Penn State.
Decker DeGraaf just missed catching a touchdown pass at Penn State. | Skylar Lin Visuals

Decker DeGraaf, as a University of Washington tight end, waits for no one.

He caught a 33-yard touchdown pass as a freshman just a few plays into his first college football game against Weber State.

DeGraaf caught a another scoring toss, a 41-yarder, in his second game against Eastern Michigan.

He started for the first time in his sixth college game, against Michigan.

With just 13 games under his fbelt, DeGraaf is one of 46 players nationwide named to the John Mackey Award watch list, making him a candidate for an accolade given to the college game's foremost tight end.

Named for John Mackey, who played for Syracuse, the Baltimore Colts and the San Diego Chargers, this is an award that strongly favors Big Ten players.

DeGraaf is one of a dozen conference players currently on the Mackey watch list.

He's attempting to become the seventh Big Ten recipient of the Mackey Award, which includes last year's winner Tyler Warren of Penn State.

He's attempting to become the second Huskies tight end to claim this honor, following Austin Seferian-Jenkins, who was the first one in 2013. He caught 146 passes for 1,840 yards and 21 TDs at the UW. In 43 games over just five NFL seasons, he caught 116 balls for 1,160 yards and 11 scores before alcohol issues prematurely ended his career.

He is one of two UW players, past and present, who are on this watch list, joined by Alabama tight end Josh Cuevas, who played for the Huskies in 2023 before following then UW coach Kalen DeBoer to the Crimson Tide. Cuevas began his career at Cal Poly.

In a hurry to be great, the 6-foot-3, 245-pound DeGraaf from San Dimas, California, comes off a freshman season in which he was named as a first-team Freshman All-America selection at tight end by two different organizations.

DeGraaf has exceptional speed and hands as a tight end, and has been working on bringing his blocking skills in line with that.

He finished his first season in Montlake with 15 catches for 233 yards and 3 touchdowns, numbers he should be able to double or triple this season or next.

DeGraaf will attempt to claim an award named after a man who caught 331 passes for 5,236 yards and 38 touchdowns, and was a five-time Pro Bowl selection, in a 10-year NFL career, if not the game's first full-service tight end.

Mackey, who was the game's second true tight end inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, was 69 when he died on July 6, 2011.

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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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