Texas Center Gave Huskies a Long Look During Recruiting

Jake Majors ended up picking the Longhorns from a final three that included the UW and Stanford.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Jake Majors has been to Seattle, seen the University of Washington up close and gave it some serious thought to playing for then Chris Petersen's coaching staff.

Yet in the end, Texas's two-year starting center from the small town of Prosper in the Dallas metroplex chose to join the Longhorns and will face the Huskies in Thursday night's Alamo Bowl.

"They were probably top three," Majors said of his final choices, adding Stanford to the mix. "I really enjoyed the coaching staff there. Coach [Scott] Huff is great guy. I really appreciated what he did with his recruiting. But I think I made the right choice staying home."

Had he come to Montlake, the 6-foot-3, 314-pound Majors might have bumped one of the eventual Husky signees in the lineman-heavy class of Roger Rosengarten, Geirean Hatchett, Gaard Memmelaar, Myles Murao and Samuel Peacock out of the picture.

For now, Majors has been a steady player for the Longhorns, starting 26 of the past 27 games after redshirting his first year.

While he took a recruiting trip to the Northwest but nothing more, Majors has a built-in Husky connection at his Texas position.

Former UW center Will Pliska joined the Longhorns as a walk-on after enrolling in a post-graduate program at Texas. They talked about their respective UW football connections.

"I kind of told him how Washington was recruiting me while I was in high school," Majors said. "We kind of built that connection off of that. We kind of related how Washington is. ... He's just been a good guy, part of the unit, [to] serve and be there for us."

While he hails from a community of 10,000, Prosper is no small-time football destination. Deion Sanders and Dak Prescott both have owned mansions there.

Certainly the Huskies were able to find Majors in this bedroom community north of Dallas. 

"It was kind of out of nowhere," he said of the UW offer. "It made me appreciate the process of recruiting, knowing that anybody was looking at me."

Which brings him to this 2022 Alamo Bowl, where, who knows, Jake Majors might have been playing in it whether he had picked Texas or the UW.

"It kind of shows you a full-circle moment," Majors said. "If I went there, I'd probably [still] be here at the Alamo bowl. Yeah, it's kind of weird, for sure. 

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