Inside The Huskies

Huskies Add Another Big Sky Player in Northern Colorado QB

Shea Kuykendall will back up Will Rogers and Demond Williams Jr. this coming season.

Dan Raley

Shea Kuykendall will transfer from Northern Colorado to the UW.
Shea Kuykendall will transfer from Northern Colorado to the UW. / UW

Finding a No. 3 quarterback can be a little tricky because you can't promise much, but the University of Washington coaching staff turned to a winless Northern Colorado team and have received a commitment from Shea Kuykendall -- who spent most of last season as a back-up to former Huskies signal-caller Jacob Sirmon.

The 6-foot-1, 202-pound Kuykendall will join Jedd Fisch's roster reportedly on scholarship to provide insurance should anything happen to starter Will Rogers, the Mississippi State transfer, or freshman Demond Williams Jr., Rogers' back-up.

Kuykendall, who played high school football at Long Beach Poly in Southern California, appeared in four games for the 0-11 Bears, replacing the struggling Sirmon late in the season. He completed 52 of 81 passes for 454 yards and pair of touchdown passes.

He becomes the Huskies' fifth Big Sky pick-up from the transfer portal over the past six months, joining Sacramento State safety Cameron Broussard and defensive tackle Deshawn Lynch, Portland State offensive lineman D'Angalo Vitialii and Montana State defensive tackle Sebastian Valdez.

Kuykendall, who has three seasons of eligibility remaining, threw for 2,840 yards and 34 touchdowns as a Long Beach Poly senior in 2022, with many of his throws going to current UW freshman wide receiver Jason Robinson Jr., who finished with 46 catches for 671 yards and 5 scores that season.

As a freshman, Kuykendall started the final three games for Northern Colorado last season, stepping in for Sirmon, who played for the UW in 2018-20 before transferring to Central Michigan and then joining the Bears.

The first-year quarterback came the closest to making Northern Colorado a winner last season, directing his Big Sky team to a 23-14 fourth-quarter lead before losing 27-23. He completed 17 of 25 passes for 222 yards.

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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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