Inside The Huskies

Husky Commit Appears On Big Ten Top 20 Ranking

Braylon Pope draws a little conference-wide attention in recruiting.
Dan Raley|
Braylon Pope visited BYU before committing to UW.
Braylon Pope visited BYU before committing to UW. | BYU

It's early yet in 2027 college football recruiting, but the list-makers never take a day off.

The latest is a top 20 ranking of current Big Ten commits, which comes compliment of Rivals and not surprisingly is heavy on Ohio State pledges, and it has one guy bound for the University of Washington sneaking in there at No. 19 -- wide receiver Braylon Pope.

The 6-foot-3, 195-pound Pope hails from the emerging Sumner High School powerhouse, winner of the past two 4A state championships and located in the Tacoma suburbs.

A 3-star designee, the lean and lanky Pope is not even the highest-rated Husky prospect -- that would be 4-star wide receiver Zerek Sidney from Desert Edge High in the Phoenix suburbs -- but he has receiving statistics so far that are hard to match.

Considered Washington state's No. 1 player, Pope has three-year career numbers of 156 receptions for 2,424 yards and 25 touchdowns with his senior season to go.

According to the list, Rivals thinks there's just one other wideout better than him in the conference for 2027 -- Ohio State's 5-star Jamier Brown, from the Dayton area who comes in at No. 2.

Brown carries a 5-foot-11, 170-pound frame and for Wayne High School has three-year stats of 167 catches for 2,556 yards and 27 scores.

Comparatively speaking, that's just 11 more grabs, 132 yards and 2 touchdowns more than Pope, almost a wash.

Brown, who played for a 9-5 regional finalist, reportedly chose Ohio State over Notre Dame.

Pope, whose state title team went 11-3, had Miami, Oregon and USC among his options.

In further examining the list, Ohio State had six of the 20 players singled out, while Nebraska came in with three and Oregon and Michigan had two each.

If there's any quibble from the middle of Big Ten territory over this arrangement of talent, it might come from national champion Indiana, which is represented only by Mosanna Torbert Jr., who appears at No. 20 as the so-called "athlete" recruit.

What that means is the 5-foot-10, 158-pound Torbert is a 4-star quarterback and a cornerback from Cincinnati's Princeton High School who could end up playing either position for the Hoosiers.

While the others likely boast more quickness, Pope has plenty of size on players such as Brown and Torbert, and it will be most interesting to see who among these three turns out to be the better college football player -- No. 2, 19 or 20.

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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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