UW's Oklahoma State Import Faces Team from Old Neighborhood

Jabbar Muhammad is proof you can take the veteran cornerback out of Oklahoma but you can't take Oklahoma out of the coverage guy. One look at this weekend's University of Washington football schedule confirms as much.

Muhammad, the Oklahoma State transfer turned UW secondary headliner, finds himself going up against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane, a team with a half-dozen friends of his on the roster, on Saturday at Husky Stadium. Kickoff is at 2 p.m.

"I'm ready after the game to slick it up with those guys," a smiling, personable Muhammad said.

Meantime, the heady 5-foot-10, 183-pound junior from DeSoto, Texas, has given the Huskies a definitive cornerback upgrade over a year's time after turning in a solid debut against Boise State.

His UW coaches marvel over how he's never out of position. He tends to play an aggressive, hands-on style while backpedaling alongside a receiver.

Muhammad grew up in a south Dallas suburb some 100 miles from the Texas-Oklahoma border and the Sooner state. He spent the past three seasons playing in Stillwater, which is 60 miles from Tulsa.

He appeared in 31 games for the Cowboys, starting 13, and last season was named as an All-Big-12 honorable-mention selection.

So why would he leave a place where he was so successful and well established?

"I just needed something while going to a good system with a good offense, a really nationally ranked team that came back with a lot of preseason accolades and a lot of hype," Muhammad said of his football wish list, perfectly describing the Huskies. "I just wanted to be part of something like that where I'm going to come in and be an immediate impact for a team. That's just what I needed."

Once in the transfer portal, Muhammad drew multiple offers from SEC and Pac-12 teams to relocate, though he didn't want to name them.

He chose the Huskies namely because the football program had a recent history of sending cornerbacks to high-paying jobs in the NFL, such as Trent McDuffie of the Kansas City Chiefs and Kyler Gordon for the Chicago Bears.

Muhammad seems to be enjoying himself in a weather-friendly corner of the country so unlike what he left behind, with lack of humidity a pleasant surprise.

Football-wise, he has one game under his belt in which he provided tight coverage and didn't give up a long pass to Boise State during the decisive 56-19 victory.

"I want them to see a competitor, a savvy and capable guy out there, ready to communicate with his teammates," Muhammad said. "Someone out there having a ball and a blast, and is just a good, savvy ballhawk."

This Husky corner likewise has a new address, a couple of time zones away from his previous Oklahoma comfort zone, to make all of this stuff happen.

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