Inside The Huskies

Purple Jersey: UW Projected to Land East Coast QB

Derek Zammit grew up in a town just 25 miles from where Husky coach Jedd Fisch was raised.

Dan Raley

New Jersey QB Derek Zammit is projected to choose Washington.
New Jersey QB Derek Zammit is projected to choose Washington. / Zammit

A recruiting service has predicted that New Jersey quarterback Derek Zammit in the class of 2026 will cross three times and come play for the University of Washington, which is possibly both good and bad news for the Huskies.

If that happens, Jedd Fisch's recruiters will have locked in a 4-star player while expanding their national footprint a little more eastward.

On the other hand, if Zammit makes Montlake his college home, as On3 suggests he will, it likely means that 5-star Southern California quarterback Brady Smigiel went elsewhere.

There's just no way the UW lands two QBs of such stature in the same recruiting class.

Fisch's talent sleuths tried to do this last spring by bringing in Demond Williams Jr. and Demaricus Davis, a pair of 4-star recipients, but see how long that union lasted.

Also, the Huskies likely are shopping for just one quarterback in this class because they brought in two this spring in Dash Beierley from California and Kini McMillan from Hawaii.

A Zammit commitment would mean that Fisch had successfully mined his home state for football talent. The coach grew up in Livingston, New Jersey, which is 25 miles from where this quarterback lives in Wayne.

A Zammit pledge would mean that the Huskies purportedly beat out Alabama, Mississippi State and Syracuse for this kid, though the Crimson Tide since have hired Ryan Grubb as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach after those choices were revealed and he might have had a different preference.

Either way, the 6-foot-1, 200-pound Zammit offers a strong arm, coming off his junior season at DePaul Catholic High School in which he completed 150 passes in 221 attempts for 2,582 yards and 35 touchdowns. He threw just four interceptions in 12 games.

Zammit helped the Knights to an 11-1 season that was marred only by a 52-51midseason loss to Delbarton. 

The Huskies initially offered Zammit on Aug. 19, during fall camp last year.

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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