Taking a look at where things stand right this second in a dynamic transfer environment

On Friday night the Huskies won the Pac-12 Championship. On Sunday morning the Huskies found out they were the #2 overall seed in the College Football Playoffs and are headed to the Sugar Bowl. On Monday morning the gates of hell also known as the transfer portal burst open.

It was one heck of a few days. Especially if you decided you were going to enter in data on every single transfer into an excel sheet and apply a formula to come up with numerically based transfer portal rankings that would then go into a fancy Tableau dashboard all with an infant at home. Not that anyone would be dumb enough to do that.

Oh wait, I would. And what good is having your own transfer portal rankings if you don’t write an article on it? So here we are. A word of warning that any and all of this information could become outdated within minutes of posting it. Life comes at you fast in the portal.

Players With Clear Connection to Washington

QB Will Rogers– Mississippi State, 1 year of eligibility remaining

Current Portal Ranking: 87.5, #5 quarterback, #8 overall

One of the instant refrains from 247 Sports from the minute the portal opened was that there was a serious connection between Washington and Mississippi State Quarterback Will Rogers. National 247 writer Chris Hummer placed a crystal ball pick for Rogers to end up in Seattle and we’ll see if that comes to fruition.

The 4-year starter is second all-time in SEC history in career passing yards after playing three seasons in Mike Leach’s air raid system. He had his best season as a sophomore when he threw for 4,687 yards with 36 TDs and 9 INTs. The main reason he is in the portal is that after Leach’s passing last offseason, new head coach Zach Arnett installed an entirely new offense on the fly. Arnett was fired after just one season and Rogers missed 4 games due to a shoulder injury while playing poorly on the field.

Washington doesn’t run the air raid but there is overlap and they would love a guy who is comfortable throwing it 40+ attempts per game if necessary. We’ll see if adding a QB like Rogers would cause Dylan Morris to transfer out but if not then a Morris-Rogers battle for starter with Austin Mack waiting one more year before ascending makes a lot of sense.

WR Tobias Merriweather– Notre Dame, 2 years of eligibility remaining

Current Portal Ranking: 69.5, #30 WR, #163 Overall

Washington was never able to gain traction when trying to recruit Merriweather out of Vancouver, WA out of high school. The 6’4 high four-star prospect chose Notre Dame over Oregon and saw some early playing time while securing a 41-yard touchdown against Stanford. This season saw Merriweather start about half the games and he compiled 14 catches for 284 yards and 2 TDs in an underperforming Notre Dame offense.

Notre Dame 247 insider Tom Loy put in a crystal ball pick for Merriweather to return to his home state and play for the Huskies next season. Washington needs some experience on the outside with Rome Odunze and Ja’Lynn Polk expected to leave for the NFL. It would make sense for the Huskies to swing for the fences with a player that has similar size/speed to Odunze and give him to JaMarcus Shephard for seasoning.

CB Will Lee III– Kansas State, 2 years of eligibility remaining

Current Portal Ranking: 80.3, #2 CB, #31 Overall

Washington was quick to offer the 6’3 Lee when he entered the portal and that has paid off. Lee yesterday announced that he was down to a final 3 of Washington, Louisville, and Texas A&M. Both of those teams have deep NIL pockets but the Huskies had the most success on the field this season. Lee spent one year at Iowa Western for JUCO and then committed to Oregon State. However, he ended up flipping to Kansas State and was a standout in the Big 12 this past season earning honorable mention all-conference status. He finished this year with 2 interceptions and 6 pass break-ups while compiling 48 tackles and only missing 7.7% of them.

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