Rainey-Sale Cleared to Practice With Huskies With No Limitations

While most of the University of Washington linebackers are short and compact, making them Mike Singletary clones, Zaydrius Rainey-Sale is notably taller.

The 6-foot-3, 225-pound freshman is an overly impressive looking athlete. Even when simply walking into practice from the training room, he moved with a certain amount of grace, offering the suggestion that he was a special talent.

Well, all of the guesswork in envisioning how good Rainey-Sale -- the Huskies' highest rated freshman coming in this year -- actually is will end this week.

"I think we're very close with Zaydrius," UW coach Jedd Fisch said of an elite player coming back from a high school knee injury. "That's exciting to see Zaydrius back. He'll be practicing this week full go. So we'll see what that looks like."

Fisch didn't say whether Rainey-Sale has any chance of playing in Saturday's game at Maryland, but if he gets through the week without any setbacks, it's likely the Huskies will let him make his college debut.

After all, the UW is extremely partial to playing and even starting true freshmen, with 12 of the 28 first-year players getting onto the field so far in four games.

Against Ohio State, the Huskies had four freshmen in the starting lineup -- more than at any other time in program annals -- and two others played siginificant minutes.

Zaydrius Rainey-Sale leaves the field with fellow linebacker Deven Bryant. | Dan Raley

A 4-star recruit, Rainey-Sale emerged from Bethel High School in the Tacoma suburbs with 20 offers and basically chose the Huskies over Florida State and UCLA, with powerhouses such as Alabama, Miami, Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn State and Texas also in pursuit.

The attraction to him is Rainey-Sale has excellent closing speed to go with his grade-A size and he's a big hitter.

Rainey-Sale arrived in an injury recovery mode for UW spring football and has spent most of his six months with the Huskies doing flexibility drills, riding a stationary bicycle and doing rope shaking drills.

Zaydrius Rainey-Sale chose to stay home and play for the Huskies. | UW

Helping him cope with the monotony of his rehab drills is he completed them next to Jacob Manu, the highly decorated senior linebacker and Arizona transfer who likewise showed up in a knee recovery mode.

Manu finally gained his medical clearance last week and started against Ohio State, drawing 25 plays while splitting time with junior Xe'ree Alexander in replacing injured junior linebacker Buddah Al-Uqdah, who's out for the season.

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