Inside The Huskies

With elite Oklahoma Receiver, Huskies Have a Lot to Sell Him

Mason James, however, plays in the shadows of the University of Oklahoma.

Dan Raley

Oklahoma receiver recruit and Mason James meets UW receivers coach Kevin Cummings.
Oklahoma receiver recruit and Mason James meets UW receivers coach Kevin Cummings. / James

Every high-level wide receiver prospect should at least listen to the sales pitch when University of Washington recruiters come calling.

The conversation invariably will center around the Sun Bowl and what took place there last New Year's Eve.

Yes, the Huskies lost 35-34 to Louisville on that final day of 2024.

Yet any high school pass-catcher who was paying any sort of attention to that holiday college football match-up saw what the nimble and persistent freshman quarterback Demond Williams Jr. can do -- he made a star out of Giles Jackson.

Williams put four touchdown passes in the other guy's hands and likely turned him into more of an NFL prospect than he was before kickoff.

So here comes one Mason James, the top recruit at any position in Oklahoma for 2026 and a 4-star receiver by trade who to this point is giving the UW plenty of his recruiting attention.

The 5-foot-11, 175-pound player from North High School in Norman, just up the street from the University of Oklahoma, this week narrowed his 30 publicized offers to 10 -- Arizona State, Florida, Kansas State, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Notre Dame, Washington ... and, yes, the neighborhood Sooners.

James, who has 4.5-second speed over the 40-yard dash, comes off a 56-catch, 1,233-yard and 17-touchdown season as a junior, one made even more profound considering his North High team finished a disappointing 4-8.

The specter of this elusive, game-breaking Oklahoma player getting in a college season or two as part of a passing combination that includes Williams on the other end should be presented to him first and foremost if Fisch's recruiters are using their best stuff.

After all, El Paso, Texas, home of Williams' Husky coming-out party in that aforementioned high-scoring, pass-happy Sun Bowl, is a whole lot closer to Oklahoma than Montlake.

For 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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