Huskies Will Run Into Familiar Face In USC Linebacker

Deven Bryant always has been a highly instinctual linebacker, good at sizing up the situation before him and going where he needs to go on the football field.

Coming out of vaunted St. John Bosco High School in the Los Angeles metro area with a lot of credentials, the 5-foot-11, 230-pound defender wanted to play for hometown USC, but the Trojans passed on him.

Always very businesslike, he gathered up his pride and took the next-best offer for him from the University of Washington football team and headed to Seattle where then Kalen DeBoer's coaching staff welcomed him.

Following a staff change, the Jedd Fisch-led Huskies started Bryant for the first 10 games of 2025 before he was informed at season's end there were at least two guys, with players getting healthy, who were ahead of him on the second row.

"He wasn't the starter at the end of the year -- he got beat out," Fisch said this week. "Deven was fantastic. Deven is an awesome kid, but Deven wanted to start and Jacob Manu and Zaydrius [Rainey-Sale] were the starters. And Xe'ree [Alexander] Bryant was right there. Deven wanted a chance."

Deven Bryant headed for the transfer portal from the UW and ended up at USC. | Dave Sizer photo

So Bryant reversed himself and backtracked to the Trojans, where Lincoln Riley's football program admitted to the errors of its ways in passing on him initially and made him a first-teamer for this season.

Entering Saturday's UW-USC football game in Los Angeles, this linebacker from Carson, California, again always very businesslike in approach, did exactly what he told Fisch in an exit meeting he was going to do.

"The conversations were real clearcut: 'I think I have an opportunity to start if I go into the portal. Here I probably don't have an opportunity to start, so I'm going to go in the portal and go start,' " Fisch said of Bryant. "We wished him absolutely the best."

Bryant has been a dependable player as a first-teamer so far for USC (4-1 overall, 1-1 Big Ten) and he's come up with 3, 4, 5, 8 and 5 tackles in his five outings.

The onus will be on him to step it up even more against the Huskies (3-1, 0-1) because his fellow starting linebacker Desman Stephens II was suspended for Saturday's game for his targeted hit on Oregon quarterback Dante Moore that gave the other guy a concussion and sent him to a Los Angeles hospital.

Deven Bryant takes a moment before the 2025 UW-Oregon game. | Dave Sizer photo

So Bryant and the Huskies will meet again this weekend on his home turf. He left with everyone's respect in Montlake. He's not unlike friendly fire for the Huskies.

He doesn't do targeted hits. He just plays hard and shows people he deserves to be on the field.

"I can't wait to say hello to him after the game," Fisch said. "He's a wonderful person and had three great years here."

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