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UW Offers Texas WR Who Had Record Season In Spite of Injury

Jaydon Smith hails from Ingleside High in the Corpus Christi area.
Dan Raley|
UW Offers Texas WR Who Had Record Season In Spite of Injury
UW Offers Texas WR Who Had Record Season In Spite of Injury

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Washington Huskies

In the 2022 opener for his Ingleside High School football team in southern Texas, Jaydon Smith had the misfortune of tearing knee meniscus.

Season over, right?

To the contrary, the speedy 6-foot, 170-pound wide receiver sat out the next outing and then played in a limited and careful manner over the remainder of the 11-game schedule.

Smith still finished with 50 receptions for 1,056 yards and 21 touchdowns for an 8-3 team, with his scoring total setting an Ingleside school record.

After touring the University of Washington football facilities on a big recruiting weekend for the school, including posing for a photo with receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard, Smith left town with a scholarship offer in hand, his sixth.

Possibly because of the injury, Smith, whose hometown sits on the east side of Corpus Christi Bay, has been lightly recruited in the Class of 2024, with Louisiana-Monroe, Texas Southern, North Texas, Fordham and Air Force his other suitors so far.

Yet he seems to be just the kind of player who Kalen DeBoer and his staff want to unearth, someone who meets all of their grading norms in terms of talent and character.

"I love to compete," Smith told the Corpus Christi Caller Times. "I want to bring a success to Ingleside and have people have a reason to come to football games and be excited." 

Last August, Smith caught just one ball before he suffered his knee injury and went out in a 46-7 win over Mathis.

After sitting out the next game, he returned to catch 4 passes for 52 yards and a score in a 35-30 loss to Rockport-Fulton.

In Week 4, Smith felt much bolder running around the football field and hauled in 6 passes for 191 yards and 4 TDs, with the longest going 70 yards, in a 35-13 victory over Rio Hondo.

Smith also is a point guard on the basketball team, known for his defensive ability and runs on the track team in the spring.

Since beating the Texas Longhorns 27-20 in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio in late December, the Huskies have pushed hard to make the most of their late-season success.

DeBoer's recruiters have offered at least a dozen players from the Lone Star state, including a handful in and around the San Antonio area. 

Smith and Ingleside football reside 150 miles south of the city.

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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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