Inside The Huskies

Huskies Offer Arizona Prospect At School That's Been UW Dead End

Mikyal Davis is a cornerback with 35 scholarship choices who has narrowed the field to six.
Dan Raley|
Mikyal Davis,far left, has scholarship offers from three dozen schools.
Mikyal Davis,far left, has scholarship offers from three dozen schools. | Davis

While Arizona has been a crucial recruiting territory for University of Washington football, dating back to Chris Petersen's coaching staff, Desert Edge High School in the western suburbs of Phoenix has been a dead end.

Two and a half years ago, when Kalen DeBoer's staff was in place and out hustling prospects, the Huskies singled out four players from Desert Edge and offered a scholarship to each one in linebacker DJ Warner, linebacker Jonathan Kamara, cornerback Aundre Gibbs and cornerback Jamar Beal Goins.

The UW went 0-for-4 with these desert players known as Scorpions, which stung.

This past spring, Jedd Fisch's UW recruiters, who have a much deeper connection to an Arizona recruiting base than their predecessors, extended an offer to Desert Edge cornerback Mikyal Davis, a Class of 2027 player with a considerable following.

The 5-foot-11, 170-pound Davis repaid the Huskies this week by making them one of six schools he will choose from among when it's time -- with the UW joined by Alabama, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Texas and USC.

Davis visited Montlake and took in the Washington-Ohio State football game, and that largely was his reason for including the Huskies as a finalist.

"One of the most impressive things for me was seeing all of the freshmen on the field," he told Scott Ecklund of Dawgman.com. "They play their freshmen if they are ready to play, and that was big for me because I want the chance to play as soon as possible."

Meantime, Davis has enjoyed a productive season for his 7-0 Desert Edge team, piling up 25 tackles, 6 pass break-ups and an interception.

Cornerbacks might be the second-most desired position, behind quarterback, when teams go out combing through the nationwide schoolboy talent.

Davis currently has 35 scholarship offers, weeding out the likes of Florida State, Indiana, Miami, Michigan State, Mississippi, Notre Dame, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas A&M to get down to his selected six.

Desert Edge is located in the city Goodyear, which sits 20 miles west of Phoenix, just off Interstate 10 that cuts across the entire state. And, yes, this place once had a connection to the tire company of the same name, set aside in another time to produce fibers that would become tire cords.

As far as that previous wave of of Desert Edge recruits pursued by DeBoer, Warner signed on with Kansas as that school's highest-rated recruit ever and then transferred out following the 2024 season and now plays for SMU.

Gibson and Kamara likewise chose Kansas and are still with the Jayhawks.

Beal, a year younger than the others, went a different route, joining Texas A&M this season.

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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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