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Inside The Huskies

UW Should Get Creative In Its Recruitment of "Superman"

Casey Barner, a 5-star safety from Georgia, picked up a Husky offer this week.
Dan Raley|
Casey "Super Man" Barner meets with Georgia coach Kirby Smart.
Casey "Super Man" Barner meets with Georgia coach Kirby Smart. | UGA

Superman, meet Batman.

University of Washington recruiters have jumped into the free-for-all pursuit of 5-star safety Casey "Superman" Barner from Powder Springs, Georgia, and the Class of 2028, and they'll need to do something to differentiate themselves with their sales pitch from the others.

Why not promote Montlake as the home of the super heroes?

The UW already has sophomore Rylon "Batman" Dillon-Allard settling in at one safety spot for the coming season.

How about putting the Caped Crusader side by side with this Man of Steel in two years?

Whatever these Husky coaches do, they'll need to be extra creative with this kid who answers to Superman because he has 40-plus offers, is considered the nation's top safety in his class and will have a difficult time turning down home state Georgia.

Regardless, the Huskies made an offer on Monday to the 5-foot-11, 194-pound Barner, getting in line with practically every other team that might show up in the AP Top 25 rankings.

The attraction to this Superman from the South is he combines track speed with a tackling style that is best described as "violent." Rivals ranks him eighth among the Top 10 returning high school players for the coming season.

Georgia, Ohio State, LSU and Texas A&M each brought him in for an April visit. Kirby Smart's Bulldogs got in on this kid earlier than anyone, offering him when he was an eighth-grader.

"They have their foot on the gas and haven't let up," Barner told recruiting website Dawg Post, sharing how the early Bulldogs offer brought him to tears.

Otherwise, he's a scary player when making open-field tackles. He's already appeared on ESPN SportsCenter's top 10 plays. He sometimes plays offense and has a 69-yard touchdown run to his name from last season.

"I'm very physical and tough," Barner said.

He suits up for McEachran High School in Powder Springs, which is located 25 miles west of downtown Atlanta, after spending his freshman year at Douglass High, which is inside the big city.

While it might be a bit of reach to suggest the UW can pull this guy away from the Georgias and LSUs of the world and bring him north, the Huskies should play up that super hero angle and see what it does.

If nothing else, they could get Barner to visit Seattle and introduce the guy to offensive guard John Mills, aka the "Incredible Hulk."

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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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