Jayvon Parker Bids Farewell to UW, Still Not Sure Why

On Friday, Jayvon Parker said good bye to the University of Washington football program in a social-media posting.

Thanked everyone from coaches Kalen DeBoer to Jedd Fisch, and his Husky defensive-line coaches from Inoke Breckterfield to Jason Kaufusi.

Went down the list and bid farewell to his teammates and the Montlake fans.

The nagging question still persists: why?

The 6-foot-3, 330-pound Parker, one of a set of matching twins from Detroit with sufficient football talent, walked away after putting four years into the UW football program, and did so without offering an explanation.

He left after suffering a couple of season-ending injuries, after putting himself at the precipice of doing great things only to have an Achilles tendon tear on him, and after finally getting to play in a game alongside his sibling.

Unless he's retiring or is a shadow of his former self, this really makes no sense at all.

Defensive tackle is the one position where the Huskies really need help, where this might be the difference between the UW being good and great this coming season, and where this Parker, unless his injuries have robbed him of some of football ability, would have been someone at the front of the line.

Yet he's gone with the transfer portal wind.

🙏🏾 pic.twitter.com/r7qhCC7XEO
— Jayvon Parker (@GreatnessJay1) January 24, 2026

By exiting along with his brother Armon, they probably assured themselves of having to play for separate teams in the fall, not ideal for brothers so close.

They will have to get healthy somewhere else before they can seriously compete for playing time, which seems far more unsettling than continuing to do it at the UW.

Injured Jayvon Parker is helped to the locker room at Rutgers. | Dan Raley

Jayvon was the guy who got to play right away in his sixth game as a freshman in 2022, inserted in the first half of the Arizona State game on the road when injuries piled up, and it didn't seem too big for him.

He was the guy who two years later came off the bench and was having the game of his UW career at Rutgers, with five tackles through three quarters, when he ripped that Achilles and had to be carried out of the stadium when it was over.

However they judge these things, Pro Football Focus analysts gave Parker an 88.2 grade for his efforts that day in Piscataway, New Jersey, noting that his was the third-highest rated performance among all defensive tackles nationally that weekend.

Entering the 2025 season, Husky teammates shared how this Parker was the strongest player on the team in the weight room, a nice bit of notoriety.

Armon Parker, left, and Jayvon Parker, in shorts, are shown in 2025 spring ball. | Dan Raley

At midseason, the Fisch coaching staff symbolically tried to reward these brothers at Michigan by putting them on the field side by side for three plays, in their home state, in front of family members, even with Jayvon not healthy enough to do more than that.

Yet he leaves after appearing in 26 Husky games but never starting one of them, which seems like unfinished business. He was close to making that happen if only his body had cooperated. And had he stayed put, it's hard to believe he wouldn't have become a starter.

Yet Parker -- whenever he gets picked up and he will -- will continue to recuperate and play somewhere else while the Huskies have to sort through a bunch of candidates and find another No. 1 defensive tackle when they had one so close.

It hardly makes sense, but it's what college football is all about now.

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