Washington's 2014 Scholarship Chart and Roster Analysis

With the graduation and "moving on" of players like Keith Price, Austin Seferian-Jenkins, Bishop Sankey, Sean Parker and Eric Kohler, it is easy to forget that the Huskies entered the season with just 13 total players who were in their last season of eligibility. As with any season, there has been plenty of attrition thanks to early NFL Draft declarations, roster churn and medical retirements. Our updated scholarship chart is highlighted below followed with some observational dots to help get the off season conversation started.

Roster and Scholarship Dots

• Assuming no further roster churn (which is highly unrealistic), the Huskies have 65 scholarship players on the roster right now. This is a far cry from the 83 that we started the season with and creates the opportunity for Chris Petersen et al to take in something more closely resembling a full class than what Sarkisian and co were planning for.


• The Huskies are still a "young team," though not nearly as young as they have been the last couple of seasons. They have just 16 players that will expire the eligibility at the end of 2014. However, roughly half of their expected scholarship players will be either Juniors or Sophomores, which means that, finally, after many years of working at it, the Huskies will start to have some depth of older players across their roster.


• Safety is the only position on the roster without a Junior or Senior player. No wonder the emphasis on that position and the rumors of a focus on JC players to fill that gap.


• Speaking of Safety, don't be too alarmed by the four commits you see in that role. A few of those guys could be eligible to play different positions and we don't yet have a clear idea on how Kwiatkowski is going to want to use his Safeties.
  


• We've debated it at length around here, but I still don't think that it is absolutely necessary for the Huskies to take a QB in this class. An extra body would be nice, as it should be the case that, eventually, we have four on the roster all times. However, even in the event that one guy transfers, we could get buy with two especially considering that Derrick Brown is still around as an emergency stand by.


• For as much guff that Sark took for emphasizing receivers in his recruiting, it is remarkable that we only have five scholarship players there right now. Of course, we still have Darrell Daniels and Josh Perkins who are, essentially, big receivers, as well as guys like Kendyl Taylor and Jesse Callier who have some of those skills.


• RB is deep. Whoa, baby. Really deep.


• While it is somewhat imbalanced (it would tough to fight through some injuries this year) the potential of our linebacking corps is exciting. There is a deep corps of long, rangy, fast players across all of the positions. While some of these guys - Kieshawn Bierria, Azeem Victor, and Sean Constatine come to mind - may not get a ton of reps early on, you will undoubtedly see them all over special teams providing glimpses of what is to come in 2015 and beyond.


• Time to find the next Cory Littleton and get him in this 2014 class.


• Depth on the Offensive Line is starting to get built up, but the Huskies are still desparately short on Tackle prospects. Basically, both Eldrenkamp AND Kirkland have to work out or 2015 could be facing the prospects of playing RS freshmen or converted OGs (Coleman Shelton?) as bookends.


• While another big body in the middle would be ideal, the depth forming on the defensive line, particularly with the quality of ends that are in the middle of those ranks, has to excite Husky fans.


• Looking for possible position changes? This is really hard to project based on a lack of clarity on what the new regime may have in mind for scheme, but watch the movement of players between Safety and CB, watch Kendyl Taylor, and watch to see if any of our interior offensive linemen get some play at Tackle.

We'll keep this list updated to the best of our ability as the recruiting class gets filled out. Keep in mind that much of this is guess work informed by published rosters and depth charts handed out by the UW. We really don't have exact information on things like walk-ons who get scholarships, players who may be quietly asked to look for other options and position changes that don't get widely announced, so this kind of analysis is never completely accurate. In fact, I'd love your feedback / corrections / analysis in the comments section.

WOOF!

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