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Portland-Area Sophomore Receiver Receives Husky Offer

It's still unclear whether Joey Olsen is a tight end or wideout.
Dan Raley|
Portland-Area Sophomore Receiver Receives Husky Offer
Portland-Area Sophomore Receiver Receives Husky Offer

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Washington Huskies

Joey Olsen is a tight end for Lakeridge High School, which can be found not far from Oswego Lake, in Portland's sprawling southern suburbs. Or else he's a wide receiver, take your pick.

Either way, this exceptional Lakeridge athlete stands 6-foot-5 and weighs 220 pounds, runs a 4.5-second 40-yard dash, already excels on the football field and can probably play wherever he wants going forward.

He's just a sophomore, is considered a 4-star recruit and agreeable to whatever is presented him at the next level.

"I kind of view it as wherever colleges want me to play, I will play," Olsen told Duckwire.com. "It they want me to put on some weight and play tight, I will play tight. But if they want me to stay lean and play receiver, I'll play receiver. Wherever they want me to play, I can do it."

This past week, Kalen DeBoer's University of Washington football staff made a bid for the fast-developing Olsen, offering him a scholarship, one of 10 he holds. 

Olsen also has offers from Oregon, Oregon State, Tennessee, Penn State, Louisville, Arizona State, Washington State, Utah and Nevada.

He comes off a season in which he caught 29 passes for 730 yards and 7 touchdowns for an 8-4 Pacers' playoff team. As a freshman in a five-game, pandemic-restricted season, he caught 22 balls for 347 yards and 4 scores. 

Olsen hails from a high school that has produced several top football minds and performers, among them former Oregon State and NFL quarterback QB Erik Wilhelm, one-time Stanford QB Jason Palumbis and ex-Idaho and NFL quarterback Doug Nussmeier. 

Currently the Dallas Cowboys QB coach, Nussmeier served as the UW offensive coordinator for Steve Sarkisian's coaching staff from 2009 to 2011 before leaving to take a similar job at Alabama. 

Now comes Joey Olsen, maybe more advanced than all of these other Lakeridge football players at a comparable age, likely able to play anywhere he wants on the collegiate level and beyond. 

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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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