The transfer portal officially opens on Friday in what promises to be a day (and month) filled with complete chaos. The powers that be decided that there will not be a spring portal cycle this year which means we get it all jammed into two weeks right now. It also means that there officially haven’t been any FBS entrants yet except for the ones who entered after their coach was fired during the season. Of the more than 1,600 players I have currently listed in my portal rankings, the vast majority of them could decide to say never mind and not enter or it could turn out that On3/247 Sports got it wrong and they never intended to enter.
With that in mind, I still wanted to go through an example of what a successful portal shopping trip might look like for the Huskies. We don’t know how much of a budget Washington has available to spend in the portal. A large chunk of the revenue sharing money and additional NIL funding is likely going towards retaining key pieces on the current roster and helped to sign a top-15 recruiting class.
What we do know though is that the coaching staff uses the NFL as a general model when it comes to roster building. I decided to take the same approach and blended it with my transfer rankings to approximate how many fake dollars it would take to reasonably sign various players available in the portal. And then I gave myself a budget that seems reasonable but not too extravagant with which to try to sign those players. Here are the NFL numbers I used from Spotrac to create my guide for those interested.
The current top-ranked player in my portal rankings is Iowa State QB Rocco Becht who has averaged 3,200+ total yards and 27+ TDs over the last 3 seasons. He isn’t at the same level though as someone like Carson Beck last year so falls short of my highest tier. Still, as a QB with an 89.2 grade gets $39.4. On the other end of the spectrum if you had a running back who was a former three-star recruit who hasn’t really seen much of the field then they’d be down at $2.96 comparatively. If you’re trying to contextualize what that number really means, think about that many million towards an NFL salary in the current salary cap environment.
Using this model, the Huskies last year spent $109.73 on their portal additions across 18 players (again, this may not actually be correlated to what players actually earned). The likely biggest spender was Carver Willis at $13.48 while the four kicking game specialists were just over $1.00 each. As things stand right now the Huskies are just about at even on scholarships which means any addition is going to require a corresponding subtraction even taking into account the 11 players who have already stated their intention to enter the portal. I’m going to try to limit myself then to 8 players and give myself a budget of $60 which is roughly half of what was spent last year while focusing on the biggest priorities.
Let’s go ahead and look at the caliber of players we can get using those criteria. I am going to take into account things like size and play style but I’m sure there are several players I listed here that the coaching staff would say are not actually a scheme fit which I know nothing about. And of course, I haven’t done any kind of background check on these players so there could be something from a personality/off-field history standpoint that would immediately get them taken off the team’s actual board.
EDGE Adam Trick, Miami OH- $13.55
6’4, 249 lbs, 1 year of eligibility remaining; 66 QB pressures, 8 sacks, 3 forced fumbles
We’re going to go ahead and spend about a quarter of our transfer portal budget trying to manufacture a pass rush. The Huskies are set to return Jacob Lane and get Isaiah Ward and Russell Davis II back from injury but there isn’t a true difference maker on the outside after no Husky even got 5 sacks this season. Enter Adam Trick.
Trick was listed as a tall middle linebacker coming out of high school but has put on 30 pounds and had a breakout season as a redshirt junior in 2025. He finished the regular season 4th in the entire FBS in quarterback pressures and was tied for 11th in PFF pass rush grade. That admittedly came against a MAC schedule but Trick didn’t disappear against premium opponents. He had 8 QB pressures and 2 sacks against Wisconsin in the opener back when the Badgers offense was mostly healthy and also had at least 4 pressures and 1 hit against Rutgers and UNLV who both had very good offenses.
If there’s a concern about Trick, it’s that as of right this second he is a bit of a one-hit wonder. Trick didn’t see the field in any meaningful way until his 3rd season in college when he had a fine season for a MAC starter with 26 pressures and 4 sacks. That ballooned into a monster redshirt junior season here in 2025. Can he keep up that same production as a senior moving up a level? I’d be willing to pay to find out if I’m Washington.
WR Braden Pegan, Utah State- $9.89
6’3, 210 lbs, 1 year of eligibility remaining; 60 catches, 939 yards, 5 TDs
I considered going with a slightly more budget option here but opted for Pegan as the replacement for Denzel Boston on the outside. It wouldn’t shock me to just see the Huskies plan on going into next year with Dezmen Roebuck and Rashid Williams as starters while letting their large group of young receivers battle it out for the last few spots. But I’m going to help Demond out by bringing in more of a proven entity.
Pegan doesn’t have a long track record after hardly getting on the field his first 3 years at UCLA. He then transferred to Utah State and immediately earned 2nd team all-conference honors in the Mountain West after piling up nearly 1,000 yards. He has sure hands with just 2 drops on 93 targets last year and won over 50% of his contested catches which is the baseline I usually use for bigger receivers showing off their ball skills. He only scored 5 TDs so you couldn’t just throw jump balls to him every time in the red zone but his advanced stats show he has a nice skillset. Similar receiver profiles from the portal last year ended up with 300-700 receiving yards moving up to the power conference level this year which makes for a solid 2nd/3rd option.
CB Sione Laulea, Oregon- $8.97
6’4, 196 lbs, 2 years of eligibility remaining; 30% opp comp%, 11.3 yds/reception, 2 PBUs
Blasphemy. I’m going after an Oregon player. But Laulea fits the profile of what the Huskies have had success with recently at the cornerback position. Dylan Robinson should slot in fairly seamlessly for the graduating duo of Prysock and Davis but a starter-level player is likely needed across from him. Laulea qualifies as he was the #2 ranked JUCO player in the country two years ago picking Oregon over Utah, Penn State, Miami, and USC.
And it isn’t as if Laulea struggled when he saw the field. Across 87 coverage snaps in his two years at Oregon he was targeted 16 times but allowed just 6 completions for 60 yards while picking off 1 pass and breaking up 4 others. While at essentially the same size as the Prysock/Davis duo. You can’t make a 1-to-1 comparison in quite this way but if you take Laulea’s career stats and multiply it out by the number of snaps Prysock played this year it would be 5.5 interceptions and 22 pass break-ups. Even half of those numbers would make him a clear all-conference selection.
There’s always concern bringing in someone to be a starter who has never done it before. But Laulea pretty clearly played at a starter-caliber level this year when on the field but got passed by a pair of five-star true freshmen who appear entrenched the next two years with the Ducks. This looks like a clear case of a talented player who just happened to get squeezed out of playing time and will thrive elsewhere.
DL Keanu Williams, UCLA- $8.63
6’5, 320 lbs, 1 year of eligibility remaining; 45 tackles, 14 stops, 1 missed tackle, 4 QB pressures
Washington would love to bring in an absolute monster in the middle of the defense but there doesn’t seem to be quite the depth yet among the portal announcements at DT and other schools are going to have more than our fictional $60. Still, there are a few reasonable options out there that could help a Husky front that is down to really just Elinneus Davis from the major contributors last year.
Williams started his career at Oregon (I know, I did it again but last time, I promise) but he has spent the last 3 years at UCLA. During his lengthy college career so far Williams has shown that he isn’t much of a pass rusher with 3 total sacks and 14 total pressures across 407 pass rush snaps. You’re bringing in Williams as a run stuffer who is also a very sure tackler with just 2 missed tackles in his career.
Last season Williams was the #20 ranked DT in the Big Ten per PFF grade out of 34 that played at least 350 snaps. That puts him directly behind Ta’ita’i Uiagalelei from Washington. They’re different kind of players but that’s the caliber you’re looking for with the hope that he plays better with improved talent around him compared to what UCLA had last year.
RB David Avit, Villanova- $5.70
6’0, 225 lbs, 2 years of eligibility remaining; 705 rush yards, 5.6 YPC, 8 TDs
The Huskies unexpectedly (at least to fans) lost Adam Mohammed to the portal and are without much in the way of experience in the backfield now. The two likely favorites are Jordan Washington and Brian Bonner who are both speedier backs. There are a few power backs on the roster but Julian McMahon and Ansu Sanoe have 0 combined snaps in college so far. We’re going to look to the FCS ranks to pick up that option with Avit from Villanova.
Through two seasons at Villanova so far, Avit has run for 1,625 yards on 5.4 YPC and has a 90+ PFF grade both years which marks elite territory. He had 10 carries for 53 yards at Penn State this season so there’s reason to think that his success isn’t solely about playing overmatched competition. Coming out of high school he was unranked by the recruiting services but had FBS offers from South Florida and Navy. Avit has run for 3.57 yards after contact per carry in his career which is exactly the same as Adam Mohammed. There’s obviously the competition difference but Avit has a similar skillset and likely comes for something like half the cost. It also helps that Avit received nearly elite pass blocking grades so he could come in and be the veteran third down back the Huskies need to protect Demond Williams Jr. in clear passing situations.
TE Mason Williams, Ohio- $5.38
6’5, 258 lbs, 2 years of eligibility remaining; 26 catches, 276 rec yards, 3 TD
Washington is losing Quentin Moore from last year’s team and Decker DeGraaf had a bit of a sophomore slump after dynamic flashes as a freshman. The returning tight ends besides DeGraaf combined for fewer than 100 offensive snaps and the veteran of the group, Kade Eldridge, had a season-ending injury. There are bodies here with potential but additional experience is needed to shore up the group.
I’m prioritizing a bigger bodied blocking tight end here rather than a pure pass catcher which should allow us to get a role player on the cheap. Williams was a 3-star recruit from Ohio who didn’t have any offers above the MAC level. After a redshirt freshman season, he has had 200+ receiving yards each of the last two years. Whether Williams is truly a take will require some film study I’m not doing in this exercise. He had an abysmal 27.4 pass block grade from PFF in 2024 but that skyrocketed up to 73.6 last year which is quite good. If that more recent number is more reflective of his blocking prowess, Williams has the requisite size to excel in that regard and play a complementary role alongside DeGraaf in 12 personnel sets.
DL DeSean Watts, Sacramento State- $5.04
6’2, 318 lbs, 2 years of eligibility remaining; 16 QB pressures, 2 sacks, 36 tackles, 1 forced fumble
I’ll admit that I’m slightly perplexed at where Watts comes in with my transfer grades and so I think relative to other players he’ll end up commanding more than this. So maybe the budget has to be stretched a little bit or we downgrade somewhere else slightly in order to bring in Watts. The Huskies have had recent success with players from Sacramento State and Watts could be next with the hole on the interior for Washington.
Watts was an unrated JUCO recruit last year but came in and started 9 games for the Hornets in his first season there and finished with one of the highest run grades in FCS per PFF. He also showed off some ability to rush the passer with a 9% pressure rate that is pretty good for someone over 315 pounds. The combo of Williams and Watts on the interior would shore up Washington’s run defense and help replenish the rotation at that position.
P Bryan Hansen, Colorado State- $1.05
6’3, 210 lbs, 1 year of eligibility remaining
I’ll admit that this one is a bit of a placeholder given that I do not trust myself as an evaluator of punters. PFF gave him a well below average punting grade even though his net was almost 10 yards better than Washington’s Luke Dunne. That’s likely because he has a low hangtime but was capable of booming it with a long of 67. Against the Huskies in the season opener he punted 3 times for a net of 45 yards. He’s not an Aussie style punter so I don’t think is the kind of punter the staff would target but this is spot is reserved for whoever the coaching staff thinks is the best punter in the portal. Washington can’t go through another season just hoping they can punt it past midfield whenever they go three and out.
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When we total it up we spent $58.21 of our $60 budget so there’s room to go just a little bit higher on a few people here to try to win a bidding war. At the end of the spending spree, here would be my projections for a 2-deep given these additions with the understanding that UW probably will have ~6-8 defections to make room and some of those may come from these players.
I would’ve liked to potentially add a backup offensive lineman somewhere but there are enough bodies there that I think the coaching staff is okay if the money is spent retaining the current group and hoping they can get by. That is helped by me kicking Mills out to tackle where the depth is worse than it is at guard.
You could definitely argue that bringing in a 3rd DT is a bigger priority than a starting caliber WR and I understand the logic of bringing in a Kai Horton caliber backup just in case none of the 3 young freshmen are ready.
But overall this looks like a fairly well-rounded roster. Would it be good enough to compete for a Big Ten title next year? We’ll find out.
(Okay, actually we won’t quite because this was a theoretical exercise…)