Manu Is Back But Still Has Decision to Make With Huskies

Just watching Jacob Manu go through his knee injury rehabilitation was exhausting. He was relentless in straining in a resistance harness, plus stretching, running, riding a stationary bicycle and even boxing.

This past Saturday, 11 months after he tore up that knee while playing for Arizona, the 5-foot-11, 225-pound senior linebacker, pulled on University of Washington football jersey No. 9 once made famous by Michael Penix Jr.

Manu not only took his rightful place in the second row and played against No. 1-ranked Ohio State, he started and went about his business with 3 tackles in a limited stint as if nothing bad had happened.

End of story, right?

For Manu, this stage of his career still remains as uncertain as ever in terms of making a definitive move, but more for financial considerations rather than for health reasons, all brought on by college football's new frontier.

Jacob Manu tries to fight his way through the Ohio State offensive line. | Dave Sizer photo

"Now we have to figure out what that's going to look like for Jacob, in regards to redshirting or not redshirting," UW coach Jedd Fisch said.

Manu played 29 snaps against Ohio State in the 24-6 loss and showed flashes of the talent that made him a first-team All-Pac-12 selection and that league's leading tackler with 116 in 2023. This Saturday, he'll be back in the UW lineup at Maryland.

He missed Arizona's final six games last fall and the Huskies' first three outings on this schedule, so he won't have another full season to show himself to NFL scouts unless he returns in 2026.

Just as important, as Fisch explained it, Manu could stand to cash in on significant name, image and likeness rewards if he came back.

Yet if he plays in more than four games this season, with the rules possibly up for revision but so far unchanged, he would realize none of it.

"He'll probably be a team captain for us and he'll probably be able to have an incredible amount of outside NIL opportunities because of his personality and what he means to that team, and be able to receive revenue share dollars," Fisch said of 2026. "None of those things [otherwise] will be available to him because his time has expired."

Jacob Manu (5) lines up for Arizona against Oklahoma in the 2023 Alamo Bowl. | Daniel Dunn-Imagn Images

Discussions will be ongoing between the UW leader, who clearly is a player's coach, and his stalwart linebacker until they settle on the best option for Manu.

"To do that, we're going to make sure we don't rush anything," Fisch said. "We're going to make sure that we take great care of him and we'll have a good plan."

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