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Huskies Offer Tucson Edge Forced to Sit Out Half the Season

After missing seven games for transferring, Keona Wilhite was productive in the stretch run.
Dan Raley|
Huskies Offer Tucson Edge Forced to Sit Out Half the Season
Huskies Offer Tucson Edge Forced to Sit Out Half the Season

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Washington Huskies

Keona Wilhite's tank was just half full this past football season. 

For changing high schools — from Cienega to Salpointe Catholic in Tucson, Arizona — the 6-foot-5, 240-pound edge rusher was forced to sit out nearly half of the 2022 schedule, seven games in all.

This all seemed a little archaic considering all of the rampant and unpenalized player movement happening at all levels of the football these days.

Once he served out his transfer penalty, Wilhite proved to be a highly productive player for his new team, chalking up 24 tackles, including 5.5 for loss and 4.5 sacks. This came over just five games, two of which were playoff encounters.

That was more than enough for Kalen DeBoer's University of Washington recruiters to see. On Tuesday, they made a scholarship offer to Wilhite, giving him eight overall, joining Arizona, Arizona State, BYU, Colorado, Nebraska, Oregon State and UCLA.

It appears that the coaching staff is pushing hard to get the three-star prospect up to Seattle on an official visit sooner rather than later and he's not the only member of the Salpointe Catholic squad the UW is pursuing. Wilhite's running mate on the defensive line is five-star edge rusher Elijah Rushing, who is arguably the top prospect on the West Coast.

A 3-star recruit, Wilhite made his season debut against Williams Field in late October and seemed to blow off a lot of steam after being inactive for the first seven games. 

In a 36-33 victory for the Salpointe Catholic Lancers, the newly eligible Wilhite piled up 10 tackles, which included 3 sacks.

The UW has some strong selling points to make in its continued pursuit of Wilhite, namely that it already has a pair of promising Arizona-produced edge rushers in Bralen Trice, a returning All-Pac-12 selection originally from O'Connor High in Phoenix, and Lance "Showtime" Holtzclaw, from Desert Ridge High in Mesa.

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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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