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Inside The Huskies

Huskies Still Trying To Prove Their Individual Worth

The player lists don't look kindly on Jedd Fisch's football team.
Dan Raley|
John Mills (72) still isn't getting all the individuall accolades he should.
John Mills (72) still isn't getting all the individuall accolades he should. | Dave Sizer phot

Maybe it's the geographical location, being about as far away from the college football mainstream as any school out there.

Whatever it is, University of Washington football players aren't showing up on preseason lists with any consistency for being an exceptional talent.

Which prompts the following question: Are the Huskies getting overlooked or are they simply a collection of good but not great players when compared to everyone else?

Case in point is a Top 100 of Big Ten players prepared by The Big Ten Huddle and bereft of Jedd Fisch's players anywhere in the top half.

A Husky doesn't appear until No. 55, when quarterback Demond Williams Jr. is singled out, and just three Huskies receive any attention at all, including wide receiver Dezmen Roebuck coming in at No. 65 and linebacker Jacob Manu at No. 89.

It doesn't seem like much of a reward for a Washington team coming off a 9-4 season and holding onto a favorable schedule that might keep it unbeaten entering November.

While the Blue Bloods of the Big Ten rightly deserve a lot of player recognition, teams such as Rutgers, Minnesota and Nebraska each have multiple guys ranked ahead of these Huskies and none of them played for a team as successful as Fisch's in 2025.

And while Oregon is acknowledged as a repository of football talent these days, this list has nine Ducks singled out in the first 39 players, more than any other team, which seems a little silly.

If he can produce a victory or two over someone such as USC or Penn State, Williams will be looked at in a different light. His talent is unquestioned. His track record of signature wins is lacking.

Now fully recovered from a knee injury, Manu likewise could shoot way up the list should he resemble the dominant player he was in 2023 for Arizona.

UW players ignored who could appear on a Big Ten Top 100 are sophomore offensive guard John Mills, junior tight end Decker DeGraaf, junior defensive tackle Elinneus Davis, senior safety Alex McLaughlin and junior cornerback Manny Karnley.

There's no way Mills doesn't make any individual lists going forward. There aren't many like him anywhere in the college game.

A little more representative of the possibilities of this particular Husky talent base is the East-West Bowl 1,000 watch list, which has10 of Fisch's players under consideration.

They include senior offensive tackle Drew Azzopardi, senior edge rusher Jacob Lane, senior center Landen Hatchett, senior linebacker Xe'ree Alexander, senior punter Hunter Green, Manu, Karnley, Davis, McLaughlin and Williams.

If the Huskies can win 10 games or more, which seems like a reasonable goal for this team, there shouldn't be any shortage of individual accolades being passed around in Montlake at season's end.

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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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