Inside The Huskies

Huskies Offer Sack Master from North Carolina

Jaybron Harvey also fancies himself as a basketball player, but that won't last.
Dan Raley|
Huskies Offer Sack Master from North Carolina
Huskies Offer Sack Master from North Carolina

Like a lot of North Carolina teenagers, Jaybron Harvey fancies himself as a serious basketball player. 

You know, as in Jordan, play like Mike. 

Harvey hails from Durham, home of Duke University and one of college basketball's elite programs for decades. 

A 6-foot-4, 216-pound small forward, he spends his summers indoors, in gyms all over the region, playing for select teams.

But sorry Jaybron, this basketball thing is just not going to happen for you.

This versatile athlete from Southern Durham High School is just too skilled as a football player to not be asked to give all of himself to the game.

Jaybron isn't going to be LeBron.

The University of Washington feels that way.

On Monday, the Huskies offered a football scholarship to Harvey, a noted edge rusher, giving him a dozen pursuers.

How good?

This past season, Harvey came up with 129 tackles, including a whopping 35 tackles for lost yardage and 28.5 sacks — the latter numbers believed to be national bests. 

In his career Southern Durham career so far, he has accumulated 165 tackles for 43 TFLs and 33.5 sacks, plus he has two forced fumbles and an interception. 

He's the son of Jamien Harvey, a one-time defensive end for West Virginia, giving him family genes at this football endeavor.

He's also really fast.

Harvey runs 4.59 seconds over 40 yards, which gets him to the backfield in a hurry.

He was first noticed by Arizona State, which provided him with his first scholarship offer, and Michigan, Louisville, Wake Forest and Vanderbilt also have followed suit.

A member of the Class of 2023, Harvey still has his senior year to play. 

Another 35 TFLs can't be too far off.

Basketball, however, should become a fleeting memory.

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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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