Zakhari Spears Goes From Huskies to Huskies, Will Join Mora at UConn
Former University of Washington cornerback Zakhari Spears wasn't in the transfer portal long, four days tops. On Wednesday, the 6-foot-1, 190-pound redshirt freshman from Los Angeles announced his commitment to Connecticut.
He's going from Huskies to Huskies.
In fact, he's left behind the Kalen DeBoer coaching staff for one headed up by Jim Mora Jr., the former UW linebacker during the Don James era as well as former Atlanta Falcons, Seattle Seahawks and UCLA head coach.
In his first season at UConn, Mora put together a 6-6 Huskies football team that will play Marshall on Dec. 19 in the Myrtle Beach Bowl in Conway, South Carolina.
Spears, who spent two seasons at the UW, is one of three players to enter the transfer portal since the regular season ended, joining safety Cam Williams and defensive tackle Kuao Peihopa, the latter announcing on Tuesday his intention to play for Hawaii.
Spears was highly rated by the Lake coaching staff, as a tall, hard-hitting defensive back, but he couldn't make a connection with DeBoer's cornerbacks coach Juice Brown, which had to extra frustrating because corner was a position decimated by injuries and in need of something new.
The young corner arrived as the pandemic began to wind down in 2021 with Lake's last hand-picked class of Husky defensive backs in cornerbacks Davon Banks and Dyson McCutcheon, and safety Vince Nunley, all Californians.
Yet while Banks and McCutcheon played, and Nunley made his move for playing time in fall camp but suffered a season-ending injury, Spears remained well down the depth chart for DeBoer's first-year staff and chose to transfer.
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