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McDonald First To Enter Transfer Portal Since UW Coaching Change

The outside linebacker made 10 starts this past season as a replacement for the injured Zion Tupuola-Fetui.
Dan Raley|
McDonald First To Enter Transfer Portal Since UW Coaching Change
McDonald First To Enter Transfer Portal Since UW Coaching Change

Outside linebacker Cooper McDonald became the first University of Washington football player to enter the transfer portal following the coaching change, making his intentions known on Wednesday.

The 6-foot-3, 245-pounder from Haslet, Texas, a second-year freshman, leaves after starting 10 of 12 Husky games this past season, and making 16 appearances overall in his two-year career in Seattle.

McDonald had the monumental task of replacing first-team All-Pac-12 selection Zion Tupuola-Fetui in the starting lineup after his teammate ruptured an Achilles tendon during spring football and had surgery.

While former coach Jimmy Lake liked to say that "the game was not too big" for McDonald, he made a minimal impact as a young player who was probably thrust into the action too soon as a starter. He finished with 26 tackles, including 5.5 tackles for loss and just 1.5 sacks.

Coming out of high school as a 3-star recruit, he passed up chances to play for teams such as Baylor, Colorado and Utah because he felt Washington was his best opportunity to become a pro football player.

"You see how many current Dawgs are in the NFL and that's my goal is to get to the next level," McDonald said. "I believe in this coaching staff, that they can do that."

Unfortunately for him, that Husky coaching staff is gone, replaced by Kalen DeBoer from Fresno State and a staff that will be bringing in a different defense. He apparently wasn't willing to play for a coach he didn't choose.

McDonald's older brother Caden, a first-team All-Mountain West linebacker for San Diego State in 2020, played against Fresno State and DeBoer this past season and lost 30-20 before finishing the regular season 11-2. 

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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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