Inside The Huskies

Huard Re-Enters Transfer Portal After Season at Cal Poly

The former Husky quarterback has two years of eligibility remaining.

Dan Raley

Sam Huard as re-entered the transfer portal.
Sam Huard as re-entered the transfer portal. / Joe Nicholson/USA TODAY Sports

Sam Huard, once considered the quarterback of the future for the University of Washington football program, is on the move again, entering the transfer portal after spending a season with Cal Poly, according to multiple reports.

Huard leaves the Big Sky school a week after offensive coordinator Sheldon Cross, who also was the QB's high school coach at Seattle's Kennedy Catholic, took a comparable job at Stetson, an FCS school in DeLand, Florida.

Husky fans might want to know: Would Huard, the 5-star recruit and son and nephew of former Husky quarterbacks Damon and Brock Huard, consider a return to Seattle if new coach Jedd Fisch was up for it?

Not likely.

The 6-foot-2, 200-pound Huard would once again find himself mired in a situation at the UW similar to the one he left -- that of watching a veteran transfer quarterback in Mississippi State's Will Rogers run the show rathern than Michael Penix Jr., with the added presence of promising freshman Demond Williams Jr. getting in his way.

In his season away from the UW, Huard played in nine games for a 3-8 Cal Poly team, sitting out at midseason because of concussion protocol.

The left-hander completed 184 of 303 passes for 2,247 yards and 18 touchdowns, with his 249.7 yards per game and TD total each ranking second in the Big Sky. He set a Poly record with 38 completions against Sacramento State and tied a school record with 6 touchdown passes against Lincoln, a California school.

Huard spent the 2021 and 2022 seasons at the UW with the Jimmy Lake and Kalen DeBoer coaching staffs.

As a freshman, he appeared in four games, starting the season-ending Apple Cup against Washington State, where he completed 17 of 31 passes for 190 yards and a TD pass to Rome Odunze, but he was intercepted four times in a 40-13 loss.

As a sophomore, Huard played just once for DeBoer, making a mop-up appearance against Portland State.

Back in the portal, Huard has two seasons of eligibility remaining but doesn't necessarily have a clear destination, unless he follows Cross to play for the Stetson Hatters, north of Orlando.

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.