John Mills Pushing Hard To Start Right Away for Huskies

Just a handful of UW freshmen have opened games on the offensive line.

John Mills drops in a stance in the UW spring game. | Skylar Lin Visuals

John Mills has been in Montlake for just seven and a half months, but it seems like seven and a half years.

A lot has happened to this San Francisco free spirit since he became a University of Washington football player.

After arriving somewhere in the 350-pound range, he's lost significant weight, and with blond tresses initially covering the name on the back of his jersey, he's cut off a good chunk of his hair.

However, that's merely cosmetic stuff. If he can pull it off, history awaits him.

Mills stands on the verge of becoming that rare Husky offensive lineman who is deemed good enough to start right away as a true freshman.

Lincoln Kennedy redshirted in his first season at the UW, as did other great ones in Benji Olson, Olin Kreutz, Kaleb McGary and Coleman Shelton.

John Mills comes out of his stance in a hurry in the spring. | Skylar Lin Visuals

Mills won't. He's currently involved in the Huskies' best position battle on the team, trying to beat out redshirt freshman Paki Finau to become the starter at left offensive guard.

Every day, he's drawn more and more scrimmage snaps with the Huskies' No. 1 offense, to the point on Wednesday that he might have surpassed Finau's plays that afternoon.

"I like the way Millsie has changed his body in a short amount of time," UW coach Jedd Fisch said last week. "He's really got himself into position to compete and play."

John Mills heads to the locker room after UW practice. | Dan Raley

Millsie arrived at the UW with his weight somewhere in the 350-360 range. The school lists him at 320. He's somewhere in between.

Center Landen Hatchett calls him "Joe Dirt," which is reference to an irreverent movie character who's a little on the roughhewn side. Fisch pefers "Millsie." If everything works in his favor, people will trumpet him as a freshman starter on the O-line, which is an invitation to greatness.

Should that happen, Mills will join an exclusive Husky group of big boys who not only came ready to play from the outset, but to leapfrog all of the veterans in their way and draw game-opening assignments

The last true freshman to start on the UW offensive line was Nick Harris in 2016. He started four games, two each at right guard and left guard, before becoming a two-time, first-team All-Pac-12 center.

The 6-foot-1, 302-pound Harris, who ended up starting 42 of the 51 games in which he appeared for the Huskies, has played five NFL seasons, but is currently not on anyone's roster.

UW coach Jedd Fisch goes down the line, stopping at John Mills (72). | Skylar Lin Visuals

Before Harris, Trey Adams burst onto the scene as a nimble 6-foot-7, 302-pound freshman left offensive tackle who started 10 times in 2015. Unfortunately for him, he had an injury-filled career at the UW. While he opened 45 of the 50 games in which he played, he was unable to make an NFL career happen.

Part of the UW's 1996 recruiting class, offensive guard Chad Ward delayed his enrollment to the following year in order to recover from an Achilles tendon tear and he became an immediate starter as a delayed true freshman.

The 6-foot-5, 330-pound Ward opened Husky nine games in 1997 and ended up starting 33 of 36 games in his UW career. A sixth-round NFL draft pick for the Jacksonville Jaguars, he bounced around different training camps before walking away from football.

Over the past 40 seasons, center Bern Brostek needed a redshirt year in 1985 before he started all. 12 UW games in 1986, and the 46 that he played in during his UW career, so he didn't qualify as a freshman who played immediately.

However, Brostek's son, Shane, came to the Huskies in 2012 and started the fourth game of his freshman year at right offensive guard, and three overall that season, before finishing up as a defensive lineman. Dealing with multiple injuries, the 6-foot-4, 289-pound Brostek started 12 of 34 UW games he entered, all on the offensive line.

So now comes John Mills, all brashness and power coming out of a stance, trying to join this group of precocious Husky football players and become an instant starter, seemingly thinking this is normal behavior when that's hardly the case.

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