Inside The Huskies

Huskies Prepare to Roll Out Purple Carpet for Running Back Brian Bonner

The SoCal rusher has the UW among his five finalists, along with Nebraska, Notre Dame, Penn State and UCLA.

Dan Raley

Brian Bonner, right, has UW among final 5 choices as an elite running back.
Brian Bonner, right, has UW among final 5 choices as an elite running back. / UW

Nothing says Big Ten football more than landing a California-produced running back.

The University of Washington already has three of them in Jonah Coleman, Jordan Washington and Julian McMahan -- from Stockton, Long Beach and San Ramon -- with only Adam Mohammed an outlier, hailing from Arizona.

The Huskies are aggressively seeking a fourth from this bottomless talent pool in Valencia's Brian Bonner, a 6-foot, 190-pound prospect who has them in his final five choices that also include Nebraska, Notre Dame, Penn State and UCLA.

Bonner is considered by some as the No. 1 back on the West Coast and No. 7 nationally for the class of 2026.

He's already toured the UW last July and then again on Junior Day on the first weekend of March. He's set to make an official visit to Montlake next Friday so running-backs coach Scottie Graham has a week to work on his best sales pitch.

The Huskies once had a running back named Glen Bonner from Yakima, Washington, who was someone who rushed for a modest 270 yards and 3 touchdowns in 1973 for a 2-9 team the year after the Sonny Sixkiller era ended.

This Bonner is an elusive back who as a junior for a 6-5 football team rushed for 1,433 yards (on 197 carries), caught passes for 484 and had 415 in kick returns, which comes out to 2,332 all-purpose yards. Altogether, he scored 31 touchdowns, 25 on the ground.

He runs the 100 meters in 10.65 seconds, which gives him a good burst coming out of the backfield.

So where is Valencia and what are its redeeming values?

It sits 35 miles north of Los Angeles, bordering Interstate 5. Late actor Paul Walker came from there. Current actress Marielle Jaffe of Scream 4 is another local alum. The Six Flags amusement park is located there.

Bonner is unique in that he openly speaks about the merits of going to school beyond football.

"One of the things I look for in a school is education," Bonner told long-time recruiting analyst Tom Lemming. "I think education is really important for all athletes. I look for a good coaching staff and a coaching staff that will take care of me."

Washington, your move.

To get the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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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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