Inside The Huskies

One-Time Husky QB Shea Kuykendall Medically Retires

He spent the 2024 season with the UW, playing behind Will Rogers and Demond Williams Jr.
Dan Raley|
Shea Kuykendall waits to take his turn in a spring drill.
Shea Kuykendall waits to take his turn in a spring drill. | Skylar Lin Visuals

Shea Kuykendall this past week went the way of Kevin Thomson and Will Haskell, as veteran quarterbacks who in recent seasons joined the University of Washington football team but never took a game snap.

The 6-foot-1, 203-pound Kuykendall, who served as a third quarterback for Jedd Fisch's 2024 team and sat out this past season, recently revealed he has medically retired.

"I never imagined my playing days would come to an end like this," he posted on social media. "Ever since I was a kid, being a football player was all I ever wanted to be."

A Long Beach, California, product, he transferred to the UW after spending two seasons at Northern Colorado, where he played in four games and started three of them, working alongside former Husky quarterback Jacob Sirmon.

Kuykendall took a chance that he might be able to pull some playing time with a new Fisch coaching staff in Seattle. As it turned out, he was never going to dislodge Mississippi State transfer Will Rogers or Fisch's hand-picked QB in then-freshman Desmond Williams Jr.

So he spent the entire 2024 season practicing and suiting up for games but never getting summoned on to the field.

The same happened to Thomson, who came to the UW in 2020 after being named the Big Sky Offensive Player of the Year for Sacramento State while passing for 3,216 yards and 27 touchdowns for a 9-4 Hornets team.

The 6-foot-1, 200-pound Thomson was said to have won the Husky starting job five years ago, but he was injured before the season started and watched Dylan Morris quarterback the UW through a four-game season that was shortened by the COVID pandemic.

Shea Kuykendall gets loose during spring practice.
Shea Kuykendall gets loose during spring practice. | Skylar Lin Visual

This past week, Thomson resurfaced when he was named as the Auburn High School football coach in the Auburn, Washington.

The 6-foot-4, 200-pound Haskell played in six games over two seasons for San Diego State before coming to the UW in 2023 and serving as the fourth quarterback behind Michael Penix Jr., Morris and then freshman Austin Mack while running the scout team.

He received scout team MVP accolades that season, but didn't play in any games for the Huskies and transferred to Portland State, where in 2024 he appeared in five games and threw 19 passes, including a touchdown throw against Washington State.

Similar to Kuykendall and Thomson, Haskell is believed to be out of football as a quarterback.

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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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