Paperwork Clears, Kirkland Ruled Eligible by NCAA
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The slick University of Washington video was prepared well in advance of the inevitable. It shows Jaxson Kirkland as a baby dressed in school colors, gazing at the football trophy case and in his letterman's jacket strolling at night into Husky Stadium, where he and new coach Kalen DeBoer meet and embrace.
Voiced over these images, Kirkland narrates the following, "Words can't describe how much it would mean to me to step back on this field and put the purple and gold on with my my brothers one more time. Getting that opportunity would allow me to leave this program on my terms."
Departing from the field, Kirkland stops and stares into the camera and says, "Husky Nation, I'm back."
With that, the UW made it official that its two-time, first-team All-Pac-12 offensive tackle would be returning for a sixth season, with the blessing of the NCAA.
It was all very dramatic, but it should have been — the Huskies and their new coach officially obtained the services of one of the league's foremost players, someone who earlier in the week showed up in an NFL mock draft as a first-round pick.
That's always been Kirkland's aim, to leverage himself in the best possible manner to go in the draft's top 32 picks, same as Husky teammates Trent McDuffie and Joe Tryon-Shoyinka did the past two years.
He could have been drafted in 2020, but likely as a second- or third-rounder, and that wasn't good enough. So Kirkland came back last season.
Kirkland earned all-conference honors last fall, but injured an ankle and played only at 60 percent and his team stumbled to 4-8. He could have entered last week's draft, but anything except a first-round pick wasn't acceptable.
He underwent offseason surgery on his damaged ankle and decided to return for a sixth season, but the 6-foot-7, 310-pounder from Vancouver, Washington, missed a deadline for declaring his intentions.
Kirkland, a 39-game UW starter, had to petition the NCAA for his continued eligibility, a process that forced him to miss all of the recently concluded spring ball, though he's still in rehab and likely wouldn't been available for much.
Now he's back. As Kirkland and DeBoer parted ways in the video, the coach exclaimed, "Let's get to work," and Kirkland responded with a definitive "sir."
Together, they intend to win a lot of games again and to mold Kirkland into that first-rounder he desires to be.
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