If Huskies Had Named Spring MVP, It Would Have Been Clark

Midway through the third University of Washington spring football practice, when the pads came on for the first time, with nearly 100 players all blended together on a Saturday, was when Rahshawn Clark first stuck out.

Quarterback Demond Williams tried to beat him deep on a pass up the sideline, but the 6-foot, 195-pound Clark stayed with it, never once out of position.

He cleanly intercepted the ball, sprinted about 40 yards with it and emphatically spiked it on the 50-yard -- as if to announce he had finally arrived in Montlake.

This would be the first of an unofficial seven pass thefts for Clark over the final 13 spring sessions, or nearly one every other practice. All of this seemed to accelerate his career path.

"He had one of the best springs of the team," UW coach Jedd Fisch said. "He might have been the MVP of spring, or in the conversation."

Clark is exhibit A why you don't just jump into the transfer portal if you don't play right away, why college football is a developmental game, why patience still matters.

For those still getting to know him, that's two h's in Rahshawn, with no excuses for not getting it right moving forward.

Clark appeared in only one game as a freshman in 2024, for a handful of plays against Weber State, and then settled into a behind-the-scenes redshirt season, which is when players temporarily become forgotten.

When spring football began last month, Clark initially ran onto the field with the No. 2 defense. He shifted between cornerback and nickelback. He made plays wherever they put him. No one had even half as many interceptions as he did.

"He's going to continue to get better, continue to make plays," Fisch said.

Body language seems to separate a lot of players during spring ball. All young defensive backs get picked on early in their careers. They tend to run back to the huddle with their heads down after getting beat by a veteran quarterback.

Clark, however, seems to know he has enough speed to run with anyone and enough physicality to battle it out with a Denzel Boston or Rashid Williams.

By the end of spring, this local product who played for Garfield and Federal Way high schools and initially signed with Fisch's staff at Arizona, seemed to have a lot of swagger, which is the way it should be for a UW defensive back ready to play.

Clark, in competition with senior Dyson McCutcheon and sophomore Leroy Bryant at nickel, could become the starter in the fall.

He made a big move this spring, maybe bigger than anyone else among all of the other players looking to impress the Husky coaches when jobs are more up for grabs than at any other time of the year.

"He's continuing to improve, to get better," Fisch concluded. "He's a good football player, a really, really good football player. We're going to see a lot of him."

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