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Inside The Huskies

Former Husky Colson Yankoff is No Longer a UCLA Quarterback

The Idaho native has changed positions and is primarily a special-teams player for the Bruins program.
Dan Raley|
Former Husky Colson Yankoff is No Longer a UCLA Quarterback
Former Husky Colson Yankoff is No Longer a UCLA Quarterback

Colson Yankoff, the former University of Washington quarterback, has surfaced on the football field for UCLA, but not how he envisioned it.

Shown in the photo wearing No. 7, he's switched to receiver and primarily earned playing time on kickoff- and punt-return teams for the Bruins (3-2).

Yankoff, a 6-foot-3, 211-pound sophomore, hasn't registered a catch yet. 

He couldn't beat out junior starter Dorian Thompson-Robinson or redshirt freshman backup Chase Griffin.

It's a far cry from what was laid out for the Idaho native as a 4-star recruit at Coeur d'Alene High School. He initially committed to Oregon, flipped to Washington after the Ducks fired coach Mark Helfrich and ended up in Los Angeles when he got buried on the Husky depth chart.

"He wants to play and he wants to contribute," Bruins coach Chip Kelly said. "He's totally selfless; he wants to know how he can contribute and help this football team."

Yankoff emerged from his high school program as a dual-threat quarterback who accumulated 6,411 yards of total offense and 55 touchdowns.

Both Jacob Sirmon and Yankoff put their names in the transfer portal as Huskies when Georgia transfer Jacob Eason, now in the NFL with the Indianapolis Colts, joined the UW program.

Sirmon rescinded his transfer request and remains with the UW, yet his career has stalled out some. He's the backup to redshirt freshman Dylan Morris.

Yankoff redshirted in 2018 for the Huskies and was forced to sit out again last season at UCLA after former UW coach Chris Petersen blocked his transfer request to be eligible tight away.

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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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