July 19, 2024 • 11 mins
Brandon Huffman of 247 Sports joins Dave Softy Mahler and DIck Fain to talk about the job Jedd Fisch has done with Huskies football recruiting recently, including four-star CB Dylan Robinson earlier today, why UW has had so much success and the offensive line.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Live from the R and R FoundationSpecialist Broadcast studio. Now back to Softie
and Dick on your Home for theHuskies and the Kraken Sports Radio ninety three
point three kjr FM. Alright,boys and girls, here we go on
a busy Thursday night right here onninety three three kjr FM. A little
(00:21):
you make the call coming up atsix. You make the call, We
get him in. You decide thetopics, You decide the content, because
we are just running dry on ideashere on this radio program. But a
big day for Husky football. JedFish getting the number seventeen? Is that
right athlete in the country, uhto commit to play football for you?
Dub And the only guy we goto to talk college football recruiting was not
(00:45):
available today, so we got ourbuddy Brendan Hoffman with us right now from
two four seven. How are youpal? What's going on? Biggins is
big timing me? Is what you'resaying? No, Yeah, Biggins wasn't
available exactly, he said no,And Grennelds is on the tion. I
think Scott Eckland was hungover and Fetterswas taking a nap. So you're like
number five. I'm on vacation twoand I took the time to this a's
(01:07):
at least movie up to number four. Wow, you know why I put
you number one? Baby? Numberfour was It's good because Romar was the
number four picking you doub and youworked out fine. You're back on top
after that comment. Man, Sogreat stuff. But hey, before we
talk about Dylan Robinson who committed toplay football for you Dubbed today, he
would be I guess tied for theirtheir second biggest commit of the class so
(01:29):
far, along with Chris Lawson.And I call him ZRs zedreas Rainy Sale,
the linebacker from Spanaway. If Iwould have told you back in early
February that Jedfish had you dub atnumber seventeen in America, how much of
a win would that have felt likefor the program? Well, I mean
that would have been tremendous, especiallyconsidering how many in state players they have,
(01:55):
how many players were guys. Ifthey really put the prets on late.
I mean Dyan Robinson, they didn'teven offer until I think March or
April. You silly offered him sixmonths ago, seven months ago. So
for them to be top twenty inthe country when a lot of these other
schools drink ahead of them, haddone their heavy lifting as well. If
you're a Washington fan, you havegot to be absolutely giddy considering they started
(02:16):
two months later than most of thosenew coaches did. Why is this happening?
What's the secret? Sauce, Well, I think a big part of
it is he's got a staff thathas spent a lot of time on the
West Coast. So this wasn't likewhen Debor came over and they were all
at a Mountain West school and eventhough they had Courtney Morgan, they had
a really not fcs but a groupof five kind of mentality. Jetfish came
(02:38):
from a school that when he wasat Arizona, they pretty much shocked everybody
when they got to Tory McMillan acouple of years ago, and you know,
Jet had spent some time on theWest Coast. Brandon Carroll had spent
time with the West Coast, sohe had a lot of coaches that had
West Coast hies. So I thinkthem making them move to Washington, which
Washington's been on the forefront of alot of these kids' mind. But this
energy from this new staff recruiting remindsme of the Sarkeesian staff, that combination,
(03:04):
I think is putting him in theposition that they're at right now.
Yeah, And look, I mean, recruiting and winning games sometimes don't go
hand in hand, like you justmentioned Sark, and he had a hard
time getting over that seven eight winhump when he was here in Seattle.
Kaylin to Bore, on the otherhand, has won games everywhere he's gone.
And I've been saying to Dick thatI don't know if Kaylen's been at
a place long enough to know ifhis recruiting really matters what it's all said
(03:27):
and done. But I mean peoplehave said, been, they've been saying
and telling me that Jed Fish andhis staff are better recruiters than the previous
staff. You agree with that,I do, And I think because their
focus is on recruiting, it's nota matter of, hey, we're going
to go heavy into the portal,and it seemed like that was the previous
staff's kind of m like, hey, we'll go after some guys. We'll
go after some Southern California is maybea one or two kiss from Washington,
(03:52):
but we'll do our heavy lifting inDecember. In January, we'll we'll try
to get guys out of the portal, whereas Jed Fish and this staff has
seemingly been or we want to gethigh school guys, we'll go get a
few guys from the portal. Andgranted with the way that there was so
much turnover when they took over inJanuary, they kind of had to go
to the portal. You would haveexpected them to focus more on the portal
(04:13):
after the season, but they builtheadfirst into recruiting, which is what he
did at Arizona. I mean,if you look at his first year at
Arizona, it was abysmal, losingto Northern Arizona, beating a COVID impacting
cal team. But then they turnaround and they shock everybody by flipping Keante
Burnett from USC, flipping Team Macfrom Oregon, and getting a guy like
Northafeta. So Jetfish has realized thateven in a portal era, you have
(04:36):
got to focus heavily on high schoolrecruiting. And because of that, you're
seeing the results here. And Ithink that that is going to be something
that has got to get Washington fansexcited about the future, because what are
they going to do when this staffhas an entire offseason to devote to the
twenty twenty six recruiting class and beyond, how good can the twenty twenty five
(04:57):
class be, I mean, howmuch many guys are still out there that
Washington is interested in and could get. I mean, could we see a
potential top twelve, top ten rankby the time it's all said and done.
That's the hard part, where somuch of their heavy lifting is done,
so many of their top targets havecommitted either to them or committed elsewhere,
that there really aren't a lot ofother, no pun intended big fish
(05:19):
out there that you're going to bereally in play for down the stretch.
So it probably maybe falls a couplespots, maybe it goes to the twenty
to twenty five range. But again, a top twenty five class with the
staff that got here in mid January, when mostly every other school had their
class sewn up for the twenty twentyfour class back in the summer, back
(05:40):
in the early part of fall,and really got to start turning their attention
to twenty twenty five. I mean, the way they were able to rally
to get Zatris Ranny Salad, theway they were able to get Chris Lawson
to make it laid offer to DylanRobinson. I mean, while it may
not be a top fifteen, toptwenty class when it's all said and done,
a top twenty five class given theirshorter calendar has to be what you
really are playing a long game herefor well seven four stars. Klein's staff
(06:04):
coming off the eleven win season lastyear had three of them, and so
Jed Fish has done a hell ofa job so far. But what about
this Dylan Robinson kid. How bigof a get is that? And what
does this kid bring to the table. I know that Zags is rated higher,
and obviously because he's an en Statekid, that's one that's gonna,
you know, probably make people excited. Chris Lawson is a higher rated guy.
(06:26):
But what Dylan Robinson has done sincehe didn't get his first offer until
November, you know, Zaju's hadan offer for a year and a year
at that point. Chris Lawson hadoffers for two years. Dylan Robinson got
his first offer in November from UCLAfrom Brian Norwood. Notre Dame came in
made a compelling case, but Washingtonkind of played just just quietly behind the
scenes. Really working him there andgot him away from UCLA, which uctilly
(06:51):
has done a really good job insouthern California. So to beat Notre Dame,
a school that they had a lotof recruiting battles against with Chris Peterson
was big. With Dylan Robinson,I don't think people realize what a great
athlete he was. He was theDBMVP at the ender Over camp in Southern
California. He's six'y three.Both his parents for track athletes in college.
He's got just kind of incredible testingscores, and he's been overshadowed by
(07:15):
one of the best linebackers in thecountry at his own school, and Noah
McHale. And in southern California,people are familiar with the Southern California landscape.
Guys like him don't stay at theirlocal hometown school. They end up
at a Trinity League school like amodern day like a Saint John Bosco.
And he stayed the course there.And I fully believe that that he transferred
schools and maybe been somewhere else inthe spring, might have had fifteen to
(07:36):
twenty more offers. But he's sixy three, he's a sube hundred,
you know, subten second or subeleven second hundred meter guy, can play
receiver, can play corner, canplay safety. Like if you told me
to really look at the three guysthat they have at the top of this
class, between him and Randy Sallehand Chris Lawson, how might stay that
Dylan Robinson can push Day for thattop overall player in this class just because
(08:00):
of so much positional versatility and upside. We've got a lot of concern based
upon this offensive line coming in becausewe don't know any of these guys.
Do you know any of these guyssome of them are from outside the West
Coast? I mean, do youknow any of these guys that we can
kind of wrap our arms around andcan you make us feel any better at
all about the offensive line transfer thatcome in that are going to start for
this team this year? Yeah,I mean there's going to be a lot
(08:24):
of get to know these guys inthese next couple of weeks, these next
six weeks. You know, itwas funny. I was playing NCAA football
the other night with my son andwe decided to play a game in the
grove that all miss and there's NateKleppo and there's Julius Bulo playing for All
miss on there, and I forgot, you know, this is the day
and age that we're in where you'reyou're having to get to know these players
and you're having to you know,figure out who these players are. And
(08:46):
I think that that's where if youcan kind of look at you know,
secretly he doesn't get enough credit.But I look at some of the guys
that Brennan Carroll brought into Arizona,Julius savajah Nak, they weren't able to
get to go into the portal,but it's going to be a first round
pick out of Arizona. He offeredhim with no junior film when his seniors
or when his junior season got canceledin Hawaii. So I like what Brendan
Carroll has done and his ability toevaluate in the NIX and match and develop
(09:09):
them. So I think when youyou know, you were spoiled at Washington
last year with best offensive line inthe country, a lot of homegrown guys,
a lot of very veteran, veryexperienced guys, I think there's gonna
be some guys in the season that, you know, it may take a
couple of games to measure. Yeah, but I like what Carol has done
in his development when he was atArizona that I think, you know,
(09:30):
Washington fans should feel a little bitof comfort there when he really takes over
those those reigns come the fall.Well, hey, just Brandon huffin real
quick. Well, you mentioned Robinsonplaying everywhere. Where? Do we know
where U dub is going to havehim play. I think he's going to
start out as a corner, kindof be that big, physical corner,
but he's got the ability to playsafety. I think you know, he
would rather play corner. I thinkhe probably long term best shooted as the
(09:54):
safety just given his his quickness tothat. Let it says how physical he
is. But if you can geta corner that can move like that,
this is athletic and twitchy is him, You're gonna put him a corner,
especially when you're gonna have to playOhio State here in the next couple of
years and they're big body receivers.Yeah. And just to pick up on
what Dick saidbout the offensive line,do you think Pockey Fenue can play this
year in year one? Or isthat maybe asking too much? No?
(10:15):
I don't think you and I think, honestly, when you're at an era
too where you have to play youryoung guys earlier, because somebody might be
sliding into those dms and they're saying, hey, you didn't get a fair
shot this year. Come to ourschool and play. I think athleticism wise,
with pockey, he's got the abilityto come in and play. He's
got the feet where I don't thinkit's going to be a huge jump for
him. He just needs to get, you know, stronger, like most
high school linemen going to college.But I've always thought that he was so
(10:39):
technically sound that I don't think it'sgoing to be a huge jump for him
from a technique standpoint. He's gotthat playable ability to come in and play
this year. Yeah, all right, man, enjoy your vacation. We
apologize for interrupting, and next timeBiggin's bells out, we'll just go straight
to you, Okay, pal,whatever I can do to move with to
number one, I'll take that.You're on the way, man, all
(11:01):
right. Brandon Huffman two four toseven sports Husky's at the seventeenth overall in
the country after getting a commit fromDylan Robinson, athlete from Laverne, California,
Live from the R and R FoundationSpecialist Broadcast studio. Now back to Softie
and Dick on your Home for theHuskies and the Kraken Sports Radio ninety three
point three kjr FM. Alright,boys and girls, here we go on
a busy Thursday night right here onninety three three kjr FM. A little
(00:21):
you make the call coming up atsix. You make the call, We
get him in. You decide thetopics, You decide the content, because
we are just running dry on ideashere on this radio program. But a
big day for Husky football. JedFish getting the number seventeen? Is that
right athlete in the country, uhto commit to play football for you?
Dub And the only guy we goto to talk college football recruiting was not
(00:45):
available today, so we got ourbuddy Brendan Hoffman with us right now from
two four seven. How are youpal? What's going on? Biggins is
big timing me? Is what you'resaying? No, Yeah, Biggins wasn't
available exactly, he said no,And Grennelds is on the tion. I
think Scott Eckland was hungover and Fetterswas taking a nap. So you're like
number five. I'm on vacation twoand I took the time to this a's
(01:07):
at least movie up to number four. Wow, you know why I put
you number one? Baby? Numberfour was It's good because Romar was the
number four picking you doub and youworked out fine. You're back on top
after that comment. Man, Sogreat stuff. But hey, before we
talk about Dylan Robinson who committed toplay football for you Dubbed today, he
would be I guess tied for theirtheir second biggest commit of the class so
(01:29):
far, along with Chris Lawson.And I call him ZRs zedreas Rainy Sale,
the linebacker from Spanaway. If Iwould have told you back in early
February that Jedfish had you dub atnumber seventeen in America, how much of
a win would that have felt likefor the program? Well, I mean
that would have been tremendous, especiallyconsidering how many in state players they have,
(01:55):
how many players were guys. Ifthey really put the prets on late.
I mean Dyan Robinson, they didn'teven offer until I think March or
April. You silly offered him sixmonths ago, seven months ago. So
for them to be top twenty inthe country when a lot of these other
schools drink ahead of them, haddone their heavy lifting as well. If
you're a Washington fan, you havegot to be absolutely giddy considering they started
(02:16):
two months later than most of thosenew coaches did. Why is this happening?
What's the secret? Sauce, Well, I think a big part of
it is he's got a staff thathas spent a lot of time on the
West Coast. So this wasn't likewhen Debor came over and they were all
at a Mountain West school and eventhough they had Courtney Morgan, they had
a really not fcs but a groupof five kind of mentality. Jetfish came
(02:38):
from a school that when he wasat Arizona, they pretty much shocked everybody
when they got to Tory McMillan acouple of years ago, and you know,
Jet had spent some time on theWest Coast. Brandon Carroll had spent
time with the West Coast, sohe had a lot of coaches that had
West Coast hies. So I thinkthem making them move to Washington, which
Washington's been on the forefront of alot of these kids' mind. But this
energy from this new staff recruiting remindsme of the Sarkeesian staff, that combination,
(03:04):
I think is putting him in theposition that they're at right now.
Yeah, And look, I mean, recruiting and winning games sometimes don't go
hand in hand, like you justmentioned Sark, and he had a hard
time getting over that seven eight winhump when he was here in Seattle.
Kaylin to Bore, on the otherhand, has won games everywhere he's gone.
And I've been saying to Dick thatI don't know if Kaylen's been at
a place long enough to know ifhis recruiting really matters what it's all said
(03:27):
and done. But I mean peoplehave said, been, they've been saying
and telling me that Jed Fish andhis staff are better recruiters than the previous
staff. You agree with that,I do, And I think because their
focus is on recruiting, it's nota matter of, hey, we're going
to go heavy into the portal,and it seemed like that was the previous
staff's kind of m like, hey, we'll go after some guys. We'll
go after some Southern California is maybea one or two kiss from Washington,
(03:52):
but we'll do our heavy lifting inDecember. In January, we'll we'll try
to get guys out of the portal, whereas Jed Fish and this staff has
seemingly been or we want to gethigh school guys, we'll go get a
few guys from the portal. Andgranted with the way that there was so
much turnover when they took over inJanuary, they kind of had to go
to the portal. You would haveexpected them to focus more on the portal
(04:13):
after the season, but they builtheadfirst into recruiting, which is what he
did at Arizona. I mean,if you look at his first year at
Arizona, it was abysmal, losingto Northern Arizona, beating a COVID impacting
cal team. But then they turnaround and they shock everybody by flipping Keante
Burnett from USC, flipping Team Macfrom Oregon, and getting a guy like
Northafeta. So Jetfish has realized thateven in a portal era, you have
(04:36):
got to focus heavily on high schoolrecruiting. And because of that, you're
seeing the results here. And Ithink that that is going to be something
that has got to get Washington fansexcited about the future, because what are
they going to do when this staffhas an entire offseason to devote to the
twenty twenty six recruiting class and beyond, how good can the twenty twenty five
(04:57):
class be, I mean, howmuch many guys are still out there that
Washington is interested in and could get. I mean, could we see a
potential top twelve, top ten rankby the time it's all said and done.
That's the hard part, where somuch of their heavy lifting is done,
so many of their top targets havecommitted either to them or committed elsewhere,
that there really aren't a lot ofother, no pun intended big fish
(05:19):
out there that you're going to bereally in play for down the stretch.
So it probably maybe falls a couplespots, maybe it goes to the twenty
to twenty five range. But again, a top twenty five class with the
staff that got here in mid January, when mostly every other school had their
class sewn up for the twenty twentyfour class back in the summer, back
(05:40):
in the early part of fall,and really got to start turning their attention
to twenty twenty five. I mean, the way they were able to rally
to get Zatris Ranny Salad, theway they were able to get Chris Lawson
to make it laid offer to DylanRobinson. I mean, while it may
not be a top fifteen, toptwenty class when it's all said and done,
a top twenty five class given theirshorter calendar has to be what you
really are playing a long game herefor well seven four stars. Klein's staff
(06:04):
coming off the eleven win season lastyear had three of them, and so
Jed Fish has done a hell ofa job so far. But what about
this Dylan Robinson kid. How bigof a get is that? And what
does this kid bring to the table. I know that Zags is rated higher,
and obviously because he's an en Statekid, that's one that's gonna,
you know, probably make people excited. Chris Lawson is a higher rated guy.
(06:26):
But what Dylan Robinson has done sincehe didn't get his first offer until
November, you know, Zaju's hadan offer for a year and a year
at that point. Chris Lawson hadoffers for two years. Dylan Robinson got
his first offer in November from UCLAfrom Brian Norwood. Notre Dame came in
made a compelling case, but Washingtonkind of played just just quietly behind the
scenes. Really working him there andgot him away from UCLA, which uctilly
(06:51):
has done a really good job insouthern California. So to beat Notre Dame,
a school that they had a lotof recruiting battles against with Chris Peterson
was big. With Dylan Robinson,I don't think people realize what a great
athlete he was. He was theDBMVP at the ender Over camp in Southern
California. He's six'y three.Both his parents for track athletes in college.
He's got just kind of incredible testingscores, and he's been overshadowed by
(07:15):
one of the best linebackers in thecountry at his own school, and Noah
McHale. And in southern California,people are familiar with the Southern California landscape.
Guys like him don't stay at theirlocal hometown school. They end up
at a Trinity League school like amodern day like a Saint John Bosco.
And he stayed the course there.And I fully believe that that he transferred
schools and maybe been somewhere else inthe spring, might have had fifteen to
(07:36):
twenty more offers. But he's sixy three, he's a sube hundred,
you know, subten second or subeleven second hundred meter guy, can play
receiver, can play corner, canplay safety. Like if you told me
to really look at the three guysthat they have at the top of this
class, between him and Randy Sallehand Chris Lawson, how might stay that
Dylan Robinson can push Day for thattop overall player in this class just because
(08:00):
of so much positional versatility and upside. We've got a lot of concern based
upon this offensive line coming in becausewe don't know any of these guys.
Do you know any of these guyssome of them are from outside the West
Coast? I mean, do youknow any of these guys that we can
kind of wrap our arms around andcan you make us feel any better at
all about the offensive line transfer thatcome in that are going to start for
this team this year? Yeah,I mean there's going to be a lot
(08:24):
of get to know these guys inthese next couple of weeks, these next
six weeks. You know, itwas funny. I was playing NCAA football
the other night with my son andwe decided to play a game in the
grove that all miss and there's NateKleppo and there's Julius Bulo playing for All
miss on there, and I forgot, you know, this is the day
and age that we're in where you'reyou're having to get to know these players
and you're having to you know,figure out who these players are. And
(08:46):
I think that that's where if youcan kind of look at you know,
secretly he doesn't get enough credit.But I look at some of the guys
that Brennan Carroll brought into Arizona,Julius savajah Nak, they weren't able to
get to go into the portal,but it's going to be a first round
pick out of Arizona. He offeredhim with no junior film when his seniors
or when his junior season got canceledin Hawaii. So I like what Brendan
Carroll has done and his ability toevaluate in the NIX and match and develop
(09:09):
them. So I think when youyou know, you were spoiled at Washington
last year with best offensive line inthe country, a lot of homegrown guys,
a lot of very veteran, veryexperienced guys, I think there's gonna
be some guys in the season that, you know, it may take a
couple of games to measure. Yeah, but I like what Carol has done
in his development when he was atArizona that I think, you know,
(09:30):
Washington fans should feel a little bitof comfort there when he really takes over
those those reigns come the fall.Well, hey, just Brandon huffin real
quick. Well, you mentioned Robinsonplaying everywhere. Where? Do we know
where U dub is going to havehim play. I think he's going to
start out as a corner, kindof be that big, physical corner,
but he's got the ability to playsafety. I think you know, he
would rather play corner. I thinkhe probably long term best shooted as the
(09:54):
safety just given his his quickness tothat. Let it says how physical he
is. But if you can geta corner that can move like that,
this is athletic and twitchy is him, You're gonna put him a corner,
especially when you're gonna have to playOhio State here in the next couple of
years and they're big body receivers.Yeah. And just to pick up on
what Dick saidbout the offensive line,do you think Pockey Fenue can play this
year in year one? Or isthat maybe asking too much? No?
(10:15):
I don't think you and I think, honestly, when you're at an era
too where you have to play youryoung guys earlier, because somebody might be
sliding into those dms and they're saying, hey, you didn't get a fair
shot this year. Come to ourschool and play. I think athleticism wise,
with pockey, he's got the abilityto come in and play. He's
got the feet where I don't thinkit's going to be a huge jump for
him. He just needs to get, you know, stronger, like most
high school linemen going to college.But I've always thought that he was so
(10:39):
technically sound that I don't think it'sgoing to be a huge jump for him
from a technique standpoint. He's gotthat playable ability to come in and play
this year. Yeah, all right, man, enjoy your vacation. We
apologize for interrupting, and next timeBiggin's bells out, we'll just go straight
to you, Okay, pal,whatever I can do to move with to
number one, I'll take that.You're on the way, man, all
(11:01):
right. Brandon Huffman two four toseven sports Husky's at the seventeenth overall in
the country after getting a commit fromDylan Robinson, athlete from Laverne, California,
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