Inside The Huskies

Henning One of 10 Huskies Now Testing the Portal Market

He started four games at center as a late-season replacement for the injured Landen Hatchett.
Dan Raley|
Zach Henning leads the blocking for Adam Mohammed. Both are headed for the transfer portal.
Zach Henning leads the blocking for Adam Mohammed. Both are headed for the transfer portal. | Dave Sizer photo

After finishing up the season as the No. 1 guy at center, Zach Henning wasn't going to be the University of Washington starter at that position next fall as long as Landen Hatchett stayed healthy.

So it probably made sense for the 6-foot-5, 310-pound Henning to take his ample four-game sample size of handling first-unit game snaps and shop himself around.

On Wednesday, the Colorado native revealed he would enter the transfer portal, by the end of the day giving the Huskies 10 players who have chosen that route.

Henning's disclosure came in the same 24-hour period that sophomore running Adam Mohammed, freshman wide receiver Raiden Vines-Bright and sophomore safety Vince Holmes each made their intentions known.

Henning came to the UW as an offensive guard capable of playing anywhere across the front, including tight end.

In 2024, he started at tight end against Eastern Michigan following an injury to Quentin Moore that would prove to be season-ending, used for his blocking abilities only.

This past season, Henning drew a large number of tight-end snaps against against Illinois, even wearing No. 80 that day, after Kade Eldridge and Moore were injured the week before at Michigan.

It's not even clear if he views himself as a center or was just shoved into that role because had a great need, beginning with Fisch's first season in Montlake when he had just a handful of scholarship linemen available for his first spring ball in Montlake.

Zach Henning takes the field at USC in 2023.
Zach Henning takes the field at USC in 2023. | David Sizer

If Henning indeed is done with UW football, he will leave with 28 games played and 5 starts.

He is the second Husky center to turn to the portal, joining redshirt freshman Davit Boyajyan, who didn't appear in any games over his two seasons. They both were back-ups to Hatchett, who suffered a wrist injury that required season-ending surgery.

Other Huskies currently testing the portal are sophomore wide receiver Audric Harris, sophomore linebacker Deven Bryant, senior nickelback Dyson McCutcheon,, sophomore cornerback/nickel Leroy Bryant and junior defensive tackle Bryce Butler.

While only Vines-Bright came close to being a full-fledged starter last season, the flurry of so many impending departures by Husky players has taken some of the sheen off last weekend's LA Bowl victory over Boise State.

Yet it's the new normal for the college game with financial incentives encouraging player poaching and no real set of rules out there to prevent it from happening or even slow down this process.

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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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