Inside The Huskies

Huskies Need Punter and Jack McCallister Is Available

The former Husky special-teamer went to Nebraska but has re-entered the transfer portal.
Dan Raley|
Jack McCallister was the Huskies' starting punter for three seasons.
Jack McCallister was the Huskies' starting punter for three seasons. | Skylar Lin Visuals

The University of Washington football team needs a new punter and their old one, Jack McCallister, on Wednesday just entered the transfer portal, without ever launching one of his booming kicks for Nebraska.

That, they say, might just be a match made in fourth-down heaven.

McCallister, a three-year starting punter though without a scholarship, transferred out this winter after Jedd Fisch's staff decided to see if they could get more distance out of an Australian rules football player named Dusty Zimmer.

In essence, they tried to fix something that wasn' necessarily broken.

Zimmer, however, showed up for the first UW spring football practice as a spectator and immediately decided to go home.

He was either intimidated by American football, homesick or something else.

Meantime, McCallister has left Nebraska with spring football in progress and the spring game 10 days away in Lincoln.

McCallister, who's from suburban Edmonds in the Greater Seattle area, turned in progressively better punting averages of 40.8, 41.7 and 43 yards per kick for the Huskies. This past season, he sent nine of his 42 punts more than 50 yards, with a long of 62 yards.

In three seasons, he didn't have a kick blocked.

He also served as the Huskies' place-kick holder during his time in Montlake.

There's no immediate indication of what McCallister might do next, but no one should be surprised if he ends up back in Seattle, with a UW scholarship in hand, and one more season here to show off his foot.

To get the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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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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