Inside The Huskies

Ex-Husky Leroy Bryant Looks to Rebound at Stanford

The defensive back has returned home to his native Northern California.
Dan Raley|
Leroy Bryant eyes a Penn State receiver in 2024.
Leroy Bryant eyes a Penn State receiver in 2024. | Skylar Lin Visuals

Leroy Bryant inexplicably struggled throughout last season for the University of Washington football team until the LA Bowl, when he intercepted a pair of passes against Boise State, one in a spectacular, leaping manner.

Rather than cash in that shining moment with the Huskies, the defensive back up and left.

Bryant put three seasons of UW football behind him, entered the transfer portal not long after the postseason outing and on Friday night he committed to Stanford, picking the Cardinal over UCLA, according to On3.

In his time with the Huskies, the 6-foot, 185-pound rising junior started and finished fast, but for much of this past season he got beat. Over and over. It didn't go unnoticed.

Bryant started the year at nickelback, moved to cornerback to replace an injured Tacario Davis, and in the end lost out on both of these jobs to younger players.

Clearly, he needed a fresh start at someplace such as Stanford, which was like going home for him because he's from Northern California himself, specifically Fairfield, which is 80 miles north of Palo Alto.

Sometimes all it takes is a change in scenery to find previous success levels, and the Cardinal, with a new coach in Tavita Prithard, a Tacoma product who played quarterback for Stanford, might be all it takes for Bryant to become a lockdown player.

Leroy Bryant looks all alone at Penn State.
Leroy Bryant looks all alone at Penn State. | Skylar Lin Visuals

In Montlake, he'll forever be the answer to a trivia question: who was the freshmen who played seven games in a season and still redshirted?

Who was the guy who played nearly double what is the maximum level to preserve an extra year of eligibility?

That would be Bryant, who appeared in the four-game maximum allowance during the regular season for Kalen DeBoer's 2023 team that went 14-1 and then was sent onto the field for three postseason games that didn't count against the redshirt.

Leroy Bryant pulls in his end-zone interception against Boise State.
Leroy Bryant pulls in his end-zone interception against Boise State. | Dave Sizer photo

He left the UW after appearing in 23 games and starting six of them, and finished with 23 tackles, 2 pass break-ups and those 2 LA Bowl pass thefts.

Had he come back to the Huskies, Bryant would have been given plenty of consideration for landing a starting job at either cornerback and nickelback, but there would have been no guarantees. A lot of young guys potentially stood in his way.

He would have been up against Dylan Robinson, who started five games at corner as a true freshman; Rahshawn Clark, who opened four games at nickel as a redshirt freshman; or Rylon Dillard-Allen, who opened three games as a freshman at nickel.

It's possible Bryant just concluded he needed a clean slate all around and he would feel more comfortable playing football close to home.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Published
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.

Home/Football