Inside The Huskies

Former UW Linebacker Harnetiaux Commits to Nevada

The one-time Husky walk-on will join a Mountain West team.
Dan Raley|
Former UW Linebacker Harnetiaux Commits to Nevada
Former UW Linebacker Harnetiaux Commits to Nevada

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Washington Huskies

Austin Harnetiaux, a walk-on linebacker, was one of the first players to leave the University of Washington football team following the national championship game and enter the transfer portal.

Who knew what was coming next? 

It's almost as if Harnetiaux stirred up a hornet's nest — even before coach Kalen DeBoer moved to Alabama — with nearly two dozen of his Husky teammates following him out the door.

On Wednesday, the solidly built 6-foot-3, 237-pound Harnetiaux announced with a social media posting he will join Nevada, presumably with a scholarship in hand. He had other offers from Montana, Montana State, Portland State, UC Davis and Weber State.

He hasn't removed himself from all UW connections either.

Harnetiaux joins a Mountain West program now headed up by Jeff Choate, the former Husky defensive-line coach in 2014-2015, one-time Montana State head coach and Texas co-defensive coordinator with Pete Kwiatkowski the past three years.

Add to that Nevada defensive coordinator Ioane Kane, a UW defensive analyst in 2017-2018, and Wolf Pack quarterbacks and receivers coach David Gilbertson, grandson of former Husky coach Keith Gilbertson.

With his impressive size and requisite aggressiveness, Harnetiaux seemingly lacked only speed to play regularly for the Huskies, posting on social media that he ran a 4.7-second 40-yard dash coming out of high school.

Wisconsin liked him well enough to offer him a preferred walk-on invitation to join that Big Ten team that he held momentarily. When DeBoer took over at Washington in 2022, Harnetiaux accepted the same offer from the hometown team.

A prolific practice player, Harnetiaux was named scout team player of the week five times, either on defense or special teams, before he was awarded defensive scout-team player of the year honors. In 2022, he earned three more weekly scout team accolades.

In two seasons, Harnetiaux played against Tulsa, Michigan State and California this past fall and against Colorado in 2022, when he registered his only tackle.

He joins a roster that has nearly two-dozen FBS transfers, including seven players from Oregon and others from Utah, Colorado, Colorado State, Louisiana Tech, Illinois, Oklahoma State, San Diego State, Oregon State and Arizona State.

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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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