Here's the Husky Plan for Quarterback Phenom Austin Mack
Signed to a national letter of intent, Austin Mack is a most unique University of Washington football player by the mere fact he will show up and be ready to play sooner than anyone else in program annals.
The 6-foot-6, 210-pound quarterback, from the prison town of Folsom, California, made famous in song by Johnny Cash, will arrive for his UW freshman introduction in June and Husky fall camp in August, a full year ahead of schedule.
Reclassifying as a football player and a student from the Class of 2024, Mack will skip his senior year and graduate a full 12 months early from Folsom High, which previously sent quarterback Jake Browning to the UW following his senior year.
Mack is not the first player in Montlake to go the reclassify route. Eighteen months ago, Emeka Megwa earned that distinction, but only after the Texas running back had reported to a new high school as a senior, injured a knee early on and chose to come to Seattle to rehabilitate and attend college classes.
Megwa, however, was never able to get healthy and get on the field with either Jimmy Lake or Kalen DeBoer's team. He's now a walk-on player at Oklahoma.
With his big frame, Mack will arrive without any physical limitations. He will be 17, playing alongside some Huskies who will be approaching their 23rd and 24th birthdays. He should be fine with all of that.
"He's young, but he's really mature and a lot of that has to do with him," DeBoer said at his spring practice media briefing on Friday. "But he's in a [Folsom] program that just really grinds and works and has high expectations."
For that matter, Mack was a lauded 4-star recruit who simply didn't have anything more to prove at the high school level, plus the Huskies were short on scholarship quarterbacks, so he solves that problem.
This past season, he completed 269 of 382 passes for 3,448 yards and 40 touchdowns, with just 5 interceptions, for a 12-2 Folsom team.
"I think he's much farther along in the process at his age than most quarterbacks, most football players," DeBoer said, continuing his assessment of him. "He has the physical skill set and the size to where he's, I guess you could say, pretty explosive, or far along in his development as a football player and a quarterback."
On Sunday, Mack made sure no one has lost sight of him by posting multiple social media videos of him working out with weights, ropes and a medicine ball, presumably in Folsom.
Mack will come in and serve out a redshirt season right off for the Huskies, though he can make up to four game appearances next fall without giving up any eligibility.
Rather than try to build on his Folsom High passing numbers, he can get a crash course on college football from some of the best, beginning with offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and the veteran Husky quarterbacks.
"We're going to be careful with how we try to groom him," DeBoer said. "But it's an awesome opportunity for him to come sit in the room with Ryan Grubb, Michael Penix, Dylan Morris and just really grow and learn and soak it all in. I think he saw that value being really important."
The only challenge will be to keep him busy in game-like situations, which might be tough at times with Penix and Company pegged as a Top 10 team looking for all sorts of rewards. The hope is to have the youngster ready to compete with Morris for the job once Penix finishes his eligibility.
"We'll do everything we can to get him some reps," DeBoer said of Mack. "He'll be right there a year from now to be in the line to continue to fight for a spot."
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