Inside The Huskies

Husky Target Papa Ahfua Ranks No. 1 Among 2024 O-Linemen

The big recruit from Seattle just completed his freshman year of high school.
Dan Raley|
Husky Target Papa Ahfua Ranks No. 1 Among 2024 O-Linemen
Husky Target Papa Ahfua Ranks No. 1 Among 2024 O-Linemen

In college football years, 2024 is a lifetime away. Imagine what the Power Five conferences and the playoff system might look like by that time. Consider what players might be pulling in through NIL allowances.

Head coaches from Seattle to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, have every reason to stay on the jobs just to see how Isendre "Papa" Ahfua pans out and what he decides.

On Wednesday, 247Sports ranked the oversized 6-foot-5, 330-pound offensive guard from Seattle's O'Dea High School as the No. 1 lineman recruit in the nation for the Class of 2024, and the ninth player overall. 

Oversized because Ahfua just completed his freshman year of high school.

At the beginning of the summer, the big kid named Papa received a scholarship offer from Alabama and coach Nick Saban, with the Crimson Tide unable to find a jersey big enough to fit him for the traditional promotional photo shoot.

Ahfua returned home from the deep South to receive more offers from the University of Washington and Oregon. He has a more than a dozen solid scholarship proposals, also coming from the likes of Auburn, Georgia, Michigan, USC, Texas and Texas A&M.

Ahfua is just the latest high school football player emerging from a state now continually flush with some of the very elite players found anywhere.

Sam Huard from Kennedy Catholic High School in Burien, Washington, might have been the most decorated high school quarterback to come out of Washington state, as a member of the class of 2021, and is now playing for the UW.

Edge rusher J.T. Tuimoloau from Eastside Catholic High from Sammamish, Washington, depending on which recruiting service you subscribe to, was either the No. 2 or 3 player nationally for the class of 2021 and is now plays at Ohio State.

Emeka Egbuka from Steilacoom High, south of Tacoma, was considered the nation's top receiver for the class of 2021 and likewise is at Ohio State. 

Josh Conerly from Seattle's Rainier Beach High similarly is considered one of the country's top offensive linemen for the class of 2022 and remains uncommitted.

From Tacoma's Lincoln High, edge rusher Jayden Wayne holds offers from nearly every top school nationwide and could rank among the top handful of players across the nation before he goes to senior prom.

Papa is next.

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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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