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Inside The Huskies

Huskies Drop Two Spots In Rankings After Gray's Commit -- Huh?

The UW doesn't benefit with a better grade after adding Jersey edge rusher.
Dan Raley|
The Husky purple team huddles during the Spring Game.
The Husky purple team huddles during the Spring Game. | Dave Sizer phot

Over the past 24 hours, the University of Washington football program received a recruiting commitment from 4-star edge rusher Chaz Gray, a somewhat visible New Jersey prospect who picked the Huskies over Tennessee and Clemson, this after a fairly serious flirtation with Notre Dame along the way.

By all accounts, the 6-foot-4, 250-pound Gray is a difference-maker who will take the bold step to go coast to coast to advance his football career.

He is the sixth consecutive 4-star player to pledge his future to Jedd Fisch's coaching staff, which would seem to give the Huskies a considerable boost in national attention and in finishing off this particular recruiting cycle with a flourish and take a sweeping bow.

However, recruiting rankings often can be as flighty and unpredictable as the transfer portal and that's what happened here -- the UW dropped two spots from one Rivals Top 25 on Tuesday to the next published on Wednesday.

The Huskies were 18th on Tuesday, added Gray and turned up 20th on Wednesday.

So much for measuring the sudden impact of this Jersey kid's decision on Montlake.

In particular, the Huskies were leapfrogged by Nebraska and California, which sent Fisch's efforts tumbling two spots rather than ascending.

The analysts seem totally enamored with a pair of rebuilding projects going on out West at Cal and UCLA, which at times has obscured the UW's ongoing recruiting success.

That's putting a lot of faith in a Golden Bears football program now headed up by a first-time head coach in Tosh Lopoi, the one-time Husky defensive-line coach.

While the Bears earlier picked up a most promising running back transfer in former Husky Adam Mohammed to give the roster a solid jolt, they've still had winning seasons in just four of the past 14 seasons, and only one over the previous six years.

We'll see if Lopoi's a magic man in Berkeley.

For that matter, UCLA has posted winning records in just three of its previous 10 seasons, so it's a little hard to believe the Bruins could accumulate so much heavyweight manpower so soon and now belong in the Rivals Top 10.

UCLA similarly has a new football coach in Bob Chesney, formerly of James Madison, and likewise a lot of faith has been placed on his talent canvassing, too.

The Huskies better not pick up another 4-star player any time soon -- or they just might completely drop out of the Top 20 recruiting rankings.

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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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