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Inside The Huskies

Musings on Jaden Walk-Green's Heroics and Lack of Rewards

The SoCal safety had a sensational season stat line that wasn't appreciated enough.
Dan Raley|
Jaden Walk-Green, left, committed to the UW over the weekend.
Jaden Walk-Green, left, committed to the UW over the weekend. | USC

The football recruiting analysts likely will tell you there's a surefire process involved or an unmistakable checklist consulted, all of which determines how and why they label a prospect a 4- or a 5-star player.

Passing the eye test would seem to be a surefire indicator where a guy is just so much naturally stronger or genetically faster than everyone else -- as shown by them throwing people around like rag dolls or leaving opponents way behind as if they're running in quicksand. It's just too obvious to ignore.

However, from looking at it from a pure statistical standpoint, one has to wonder what more could safety Jaden Walk-Green, a University of Washington commit over the weekend, possibly have done to rate outer-worldly recruit status.

Consider that he intercepted 10 passes for Centennial High School in Corona, California, which is southeast of Los Angeles.

Walk-Green returned five of them for touchdowns, traversing the field to the end zone for 49, 68, 78, 88 and 92 yards.

That he kicked in 125 tackles on his junior season ledger and scored a sixth defensive touchdown on a 27-yard fumble return and a seventh TD on a 94-yard punt return.

He did all of this in Southern California, too, not in south Tacoma.

His football accomplishments are nothing short of breathtaking, but they didn't really register at all with the recruiiting website star-makers, which likewise trickled down to the Huskies.

Following his commitment, ESPN similarly came out with its top 25 recruiting rankings and the UW remains slotted roughly where its been all spring and summer -- 21st.

Maybe it's time to spell out the criteria and the methods involved so everyone isn't just left nodding or shaking their heads.

With Walk-Green's commit, the Huskies now have picked up seven consecutive 4-star players, with 10 of their past 11 pledges carrying that coveted blue-chip status. They've had nary a bump in anyone's team recruiting rankings in the process.

Only 3-star tight end Zach Albright from Glacier Peak High School in Snohomish, Washington, did not reach the gilded level among the most recent wave of Husky commits.

With 19 names in hand, the UW likely is down to obtaining its last three or four players for this 2027 class.

The Huskies seem to have done really well in their latest talent hunt, but no one outside of Seattle has really noticed.

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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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