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Inside The Huskies

Fisch Staff Sees a Wide Receiver in Holmes, Who Was a DeBoer Safety

The Southern California speedster had a fairly successful freshman season on defense, appearing in four UW games.
Dan Raley|
Fisch Staff Sees a Wide Receiver in Holmes, Who Was a DeBoer Safety
Fisch Staff Sees a Wide Receiver in Holmes, Who Was a DeBoer Safety

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Washington Huskies

The University of Washington football team doesn't always provide a heads-up when someone makes a position change.

Case in point, Vincent Holmes.

His bio on the Huskies' online roster simply received an update, from safety to wide receiver one day, prompting anyone to take notice of the change.

Holmes, who took a brief tour of the transfer portal once the UW changed coaches from Kalen DeBoer to Jedd Fisch and withdrew from the process, by all accounts had a successful freshman season at safety.

DeBoer's staff used him in four games, against Michigan State, USC, Oregon State and in the Pac-12 championship. matchup against Oregon, primarily on special teams on kickoffs. 

With last season's UW safety starters Dominique Hampton and Asa Turner graduating and transferring to Florida, the 6-foot, 174-pound Holmes conceivably could have been a serious candidate to fill one of their vacated roles.

Five weeks ago at the Sugar Bowl, Holmes spoke in an upbeat manner about preparing to make a move at safety in Husky spring football practice.

"That's the plan," he said.

Instead, Holmes and the new Fisch staff apparently see greater opportunity for him at wide receiver, where the top four players at the position either have moved on to the NFL draft or transferred to Alabama.

Holmes came to the Huskies as the proverbial "athlete," after playing both ways for San Jacinto High School in the desert east of Los Angeles, in a place where the Top Gun pilots made famous by the Tom Cruise movies typically fly overhead.

While he was selected as a first-team All-CIF Southern Section defensive back, Holmes showed he could get open on offense, catching 32 passes for 633 yards and 5 touchdowns as a junior and finishing with 59 receptions for 1,169 yards and 13 scores as a senior.

Either way, Holmes with his 4.4-second speed in the 40-yard dash, can get up and down the field whether it's on offense or defense.

Two years ago, the Fisch staff actually recruited Holmes for Arizona, so these coaches know him and his capabilities.

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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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