Inside The Huskies

Huskies Continue Pursuit of Huskies Edge Rusher in NorCal

Heavily recruited defender Troy Bowens hails from Sutter Union High, which carries a familiar nickname.
Dan Raley|
Troy Bowens and Aaron Van Horn share a UW recruiting moment.
Troy Bowens and Aaron Van Horn share a UW recruiting moment. | Bowens

Troy Bowens already plays football for a team called the Huskies, the Sutter Union High School variety in Northern California.

Jedd Fisch's University of Washington staff is trying to convince him to maintain that nickname continuity.

For now, it's going to take a lot of work.

The 6-foot-4, 247-pound edge rusher is a 4-star prospect in the Class of 2027 who readily admits that Oregon has been a dream school, but that it's also going to be difficult to say no to the local team for him, California.

That said, Bowens is still accepting overtures from the Huskies, this week acknowledging UW edge-rusher coach Aaron Van Horn for attending his Sutter Union basketball game.

Playing in a town that's home to 3,000 people, located some 50 miles north of Sacramento, Bowens seems destined for bright lights.

Besides his obvious ready-made size described as "twitchy" by 247Sports analysts as he enters his senior season, Bowers has been a big-play defender for two years, piling up a lot of stats.

He certainly approaches the game with the right attitude.

"I love just being able to attack the ball through physicality," he recently told a podcaster before one of his basketball games.

For a 13-2 Huskies high school team last fall, he came up with an eye-opening 106 tackles with 13 sacks, 6 pass break-ups, 3 forced fumbles and 31 quarterback hurries.

As a sophomore in 2024, Bowens was no less a playmaker, finishing with 76 tackles for 13.5 sacks and a pair of PBUs for an 11-2 Sutter Union squad.

Bowens holds 15 offers so far that include mostl well-established football programs coming at him from all directions.

Besides the Huskies and the other aforementioned suitors, he has scholarship proposals from schools such as Arizona State, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota Nebraska, Notre Dame, SMU, Stanford, Tennessee and UCLA.

Graduating UW place-kicker Grady Gross is one of those who have gone from Huskies to Huskies, which described his Horizon High School team in Scottsdale, Arizona.

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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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