Analysis: Sizing up Washington Huskies roster after transfer portal closes

SEATTLE – It’s been more than a week since Washington’s final game of the 2024 season. The transfer portal is – outside of any last-minute entries – closed for UW players until the spring.

Washington, like most programs in the modern landscape of college football, has experienced a fair amount of attrition. UW has also gained some key additions as it hopes to take a step toward competing for the Big Ten championship and the College Football Playoff in 2025.

Here are a few reminders before diving into who the Huskies have added and who won’t be returning next season:

• The transfer portal was officially open from Dec. 9 until Dec. 28, but because UW played a late bowl game, its players were granted an extra five-day window to enter the portal. It often takes around 48 hours for the compliance department to process the player’s transfer request, explaining why some players were still announcing entries on Tuesday.

• Once players enter the portal, they are free to sign at any time. So while no more UW players are likely to leave, the Huskies can still add players.

• The House v. NCAA settlement eliminates scholarship limits, but coach Jedd Fisch has repeatedly said going over 85 scholarships cuts into a team’s revenue-sharing money, which he wants to maximize for the players.

• Washington has 92 scholarships committed for 2025, following reports that incoming freshman offensive lineman Peter Langi is no longer expected to join UW this season. Fisch said UW has to get to 85 scholarships by the time fall camp begins, so that’s not an issue for the Huskies until the spring portal period.

• The spring transfer portal is 10 days (as opposed to the 20-day winter period) and lasts from April 16 to April 25.

Departures

Washington has seen 26 members of its 2024 team who still had eligibility for the 2025 season depart, including 19 scholarship players.

Many of these exits were expected. Players like cornerback Darren Barkins, running back Sam Adams II and edge rusher Maurice Heims – all with one year of eligibility remaining – were buried on the depth chart behind established returning players and may have decided to find playing time for their final season.

Even players like cornerback Elijah Jackson, last year’s Sugar Bowl hero, veteran running back Cameron Davis, who spent six years at UW, and offensive lineman Gaard Memmelaar likely understood the path to playing time at their positions was going to become increasingly difficult in 2025.

Several of the younger players leaving also faced an uphill battle for snaps in 2025.

Safety Peyton Waters, UW’s most recent portal entrant, burned his redshirt in 2024 after playing in all 13 games, primarily on special teams. UW added two players at his position from the portal – FIU transfer CJ Christian and Northern Arizona transfer Alex McLaughlin – making it unlikely Waters was going to see the field much next season.

Waters also represents another interesting wrinkle in UW’s most recent wave of portal departures.

Almost all of the younger players heading to the transfer portal were former Kalen DeBoer recruits, including wide receivers Keith Reynolds and Jason Robinson Jr., edge rusher Lance Holtzclaw, offensive tackle Kahlee Tafai, safety Tristan Dunn, linebacker Khmori House, cornerback Curley Reed III and Waters.

There are only 24 players who originally committed to DeBoer’s staff remaining on UW’s 2025 roster.

Of course, not all of Washington’s attrition was expected. House, who was the only other defensive freshman to burn his redshirt along with Waters, represents the most obvious example.

The 6-foot, 213-pound linebacker, who Fisch had previously called the future of UW’s defense, entered the transfer portal on Dec. 16 after a standout freshman season. He eventually transferred to North Carolina, where he is expected to reunite with former UW defensive coordinator Steve Belichick.

House isn’t the only player with starting experience leaving.

Jordan Shaw, UW’s starting nickel who followed Fisch and cornerbacks coach John Richardson to Seattle from Arizona, entered the transfer portal immediately after the Sun Bowl and quickly resurfaced at Texas A&M, his third school in three seasons. Memmelaar, who will spend the 2025 season at UCF, started 11 games at left guard for UW during the 2024 campaign.

Arrivals

Tacario Davis, the former Arizona cornerback who was a second-team All-Big 12 selection in 2024, will rejoin Fisch and Richardson at Washington. Davis was an All-Pac-12 honorable mention during a breakout 2023 season at Arizona, where he played across from incumbent UW starter Ephesians Prysock.

Davis isn’t the only former Wildcat joining the Huskies for 2025. UW also gained edge rusher Ta’ita’i Uiagalelei – who had a career-high eight tackles for a loss in 2024 – and Jacob Manu, a 2023 first-team All-Pac-12 linebacker who led the conference in tackles and was a captain under Fisch at Arizona. Manu was limited to seven games in 2024 because of injuries.

Since Fisch arrived at UW, the Huskies have added 20 players who either were Wildcats or were part of Fisch’s final Arizona recruiting class in 2024.

Manu is also one of three linebackers UW signed since the portal opened. Xe’ree Alexander, an Auburn, Washington, native who played at Kennedy Catholic High, returns to the state after spending the 2023 season at Idaho and the 2024 season at UCF. UW also brought in former Washington State standout Taariq Al-Uqdah.

Linebacker became a position of need because of House’s exit, coupled with starters Carson Bruener and Alphonzo Tuputala running out of eligibility.

But UW also emphasized improving along the line of scrimmage, an issue that hounded the Huskies throughout their debut season in the Big Ten.

UW added Kansas State transfer Carver Willis, a former All-Big 12 honorable mention, and brought back Geirean Hatchett, the Ferndale native and brother of center Landen Hatchett who started his career at UW before heading to Oklahoma for the past season.

The Huskies acquired some help for its defensive line, too, adding Simote Pepa from Utah and Anterio Thompson, a former junior college standout who started his career at Iowa, from Western Michigan.

Washington did bring in two skill-position players on offense: former USC tight end and Lynden native Kade Eldridge and Johntay Cook II, who spent the past two seasons at Texas.

Cook may be UW’s most intriguing addition. He was considered a five-star recruit by 247Sports’ composite rankings in the 2023 recruiting cycle, but left the Longhorns partway through the 2024 season. Texas coach Steve Sarkisian called Cook’s absence a mutual decision.

What’s next?

All that leaves essentially one question: What’s going to happen with cornerback Thaddeus Dixon?

A 2024 All-Big Ten honorable mention, Dixon entered the transfer portal shortly before Davis committed to the Huskies and immediately became one of the top players available.

His situation, however, is unique. Dixon was expected to exhaust his eligibility in 2024. The NCAA, however, granted a blanket waiver to former junior college athletes who, like Dixon, were going to complete their eligibility on Dec. 23. It was a response to the injunction granted to Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia following his lawsuit against the NCAA arguing his junior-college seasons shouldn’t count against his eligibility.

The blanket waiver granted Dixon – along with former UW safety Justin Harrington, who has since entered the transfer portal for his eighth season of college football – another year to play.

But Dixon, who shined as an outside cornerback in 2024, will likely have to switch to nickel if he stays at UW in 2025 while Davis and Prysock man the outside positions.

Dixon announced he is considering offers from Tennessee, Ole Miss, Michigan and a reunion with Belichick at North Carolina, but is also open to a return to UW on Monday, in a post on his social media.

Washington’s scholarship calculations were already difficult when it was assumed Dixon was going to move on, but getting him back will likely give UW one of the best secondaries in the Big Ten for 2025.