Inside The Huskies

McCree Emerged From Maryland Game With Mixed Reviews

The Husky offensive tackle replaced an injured Carver Willis in the opening lineup.
Dan Raley|
Max McCree takes a big step during this spring drill.
Max McCree takes a big step during this spring drill. | Skylar Lin Visuals

Left offensive tackle might have been the most confounding position for the University of Washington football team in 2024. Three different guys split up the starting assignments, with each player opening at least four games.

Soane Faasolo begin the season as the Husky starter and opened four in all while Maximus McCree finished up with a game-opening assignment in the Sun Bowl against Louisville, one of five he earned. In between, Kahlee Tafai pulled four starts of his own.

There was hardly any continuity with this revolving door, which was one of the UW's offseason objectives -- to find someone to take the position and run with it.

The Huskies settled on Carver Willis, the Kansas State transfer, and everything seemed to be going well until he went down with a knee injury in the first half against Ohio State and now finds himself out for the foreseeable future, which brings them back to McCree.

The 6-foot-6, 302-pound senior from Kansas City replaced Willis in the lineup against Maryland, a team McCree once played for, and he had a starting perfomance that was best descibed as hot and cold.

"I think he had good plays and i think he had plays that he'd like to continue to work on," Fisch said ever so diplomatically. "That's going to be part of the process."

What that meant was McCree got in people's way at times yet also got schooled by a Terrapins pass rusher every so often such as Cam Rice, who zipped around the Husky tackle a couple of times and got into the backfield.

Meantime, the UW coaching staff will work on getting McCree's confidence level back to where it was when he was at his best last season in a 27-17 victory over Michigan.

Max McCree was a starter against Maryland, a team he once played for.
Max McCree was a starter against Maryland, a team he once played for. | Dave Sizer photo

In 2024, he played in only seven UW games and and missed half the season after breaking a thumb early against Iowa.

Before last weekend's Maryland game, he largely had played on special teams, serving as a blocker for field goals and conversion kicks, before Willis' injury elevated him to full service.

"We're most likely going to need him this week," Fisch said. "We still have to wait and see what happens with Carver, but we'll most likely start Max again and let Max let it rip. I 'll bet it will be better this week than it was last week."

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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