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Huskies Offer SoCal DT Who Fielded First Scholarship Proposal as 6th-grader

Aydin Breland has been playing the recruiting game for a long time.
Dan Raley|
Huskies Offer SoCal DT Who Fielded First Scholarship Proposal as 6th-grader
Huskies Offer SoCal DT Who Fielded First Scholarship Proposal as 6th-grader

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Washington Huskies

Aydin Breland, by all accounts, is an exceptional football prospect, an advanced physical talent from Southern California. He also represents the absurdity of the college game. 

Over the weekend, the University of Washington extended a scholarship offer to this 6-foot-5, 285-pound sophomore defensive lineman and Class of 2024 recruit from the Mater Dei High School football powerhouse in Santa Ana.

It can't hurt to get in early on the great ones — except that the Huskies, in some circles, are considered late to the show for Breland.

He received his first scholarship offer in 2018 from Arizona State and a newly hired Herm Edwards. Do the math: young Aydin was a sixth-grader. 

A year later, Breland celebrated his seven-grade year in school, not by joining the Boy Scouts or going to his first school dance, but by receiving an offer from Oregon.

USC wanted in on this action, too, but it was a tad little more cautious. The Trojans, three coaches ago and maybe waiting for the kid to lose his baby fat, made Breland a scholarship offer when he was an eighth-grader.

For the Huskies, they simply seem to be going down the Mater Dei roster and offering everyone pertinent from its national championship team. 

Breland is the seventh Monarch player offered by Kalen DeBoer's staff, joining offensive tackles DeAndre Carter and Brandon Baker, wide receiver Jeremiah McClure, inside linebacker Leviticus Su'a, tight end Spencer Shannon and cornerback Daryus Dixson.

It's difficult to say which one is the most desirable Mater Dei recruit. Breland, however, seems to have fluctuated the most physically as he's grown into his body. At one stage, he was listed at 321 pounds before he got into high school and now carries some 35 fewer pounds.

Breland currently retains all of those pre-puberty college football offers, plus Alabama, Notre Dame, Kansas and Colorado each of them apparently waiting to see if his complexion would clear up before offering him, same as the UW.

The big kid, who runs track, swims and plays lacrosse, seems to be taking all of this long-term football recruiting attention in stride, offering the following perspective to the Portland Oregonian in a 2020 interview. Of course, that reporter probably had to speak with him well before his bed-time and after he had done his homework.

“This school wants me and this school wants me, how many more could I get?” Breland said as a 14-year-old. “It’s driving me, getting as much as I can, see what my options are. ... It’s a little bit of pressure but at the same time I don’t worry too much because I’m going into eighth grade. I got a lot of time."

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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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