Inside The Huskies

Sirmon Explains Why He Left the Huskies

The former UW linebacker has been reunited with his father at Cal.
Dan Raley|
Sirmon Explains Why He Left the Huskies
Sirmon Explains Why He Left the Huskies

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Washington Huskies

A year ago, we asked Jackson Sirmon why he didn't play college football for his father and his response was that some things just don't work out.

These days in the Bay Area, they're quizzing the former University of Washington linebacker about what finally brought them together at California.

Foreseeable and unforeseeable circumstances were the reasons.

The Huskies went in the tank, he had completed all of his classes in Montlake after four years, the opportunity presented itself and these two generations of Sirmons reunited at Cal, with Jackson now answering to Peter, the Bears' defensive coordinator. 

Had the UW football team not imploded under Jimmy Lake, changing everything in an instant, who knows where he'd be. 

“Last year at Washington, at the end of the year, there was a lot of stuff going on,” Sirmon recently told The Daily Californian, the student newspaper. “There was going to be a whole new coaching staff, and I was graduating and only [had] so much eligibility left, and I thought it’d be a really neat opportunity to be able to come and play for my dad.” 

Actually, it wasn't difficult for the younger Sirmon to pick up stakes, pack his bags and move on. 

With his father's playing and coaching career moving the family from city to city, Jackson was born in Eugene, Oregon, and lived, in order, in Nashville, Tennessee; Ellensburg, Washington; Knoxville, Tennessee; Seattle; Los Angeles; back to Nashville; and back to Seattle as a scholarship player.

Sirmon left the UW after starting for two seasons and finishing 2021 as one of just five Huskies to open all 12 games, with cornerback Kyler Gordon, center Luke Wattenberg, offensive guard Henry Bainivalu and offensive tackle Victor Curne the others.

Gordon and Wattenberg are playing in the NFL now for the Chicago Bears and the Denver Broncos. Bainivalu is starting once more for the UW while Curne got beat out and comes off the bench.

Sirmon, singled out by the league's coaches as a preseason, first-team All-Pac-12 pick, opened his Cal career with 8 tackles in a 34-13 victory over UC Davis.

The linebacker, even with his college degree in hand, has two seasons of college football eligibility remaining. He'll play against the Huskies and his old teammates on Oct. 22 in Berkeley.

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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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