Early Signing Period Open Thread

Welcome to the beginning of the early signing period! The majority of recruits across the country will sign letters of intent today and Washington is expecting to get a signature from all 22 of the 2020 recruits that are verbally committed.

This is obviously a different signing period because while Chris Petersen is still technically the head coach he will be fully passing the reigns off to Jimmy Lake in a matter of days. Petersen built this recruiting class but Lake put in a ton of hours over the past few weeks to keep it together and I don’t think it’s unfair to attribute it to him moving forward.

As noted above the Huskies have 22 commitments and also expect DE Jordan Lolohea, who was a member of the 2017 class before serving an LDS mission, to enroll this year. We aren’t certain whether the school will send anything official out on Lolohea today or if he will simply be added to the roster when he enrolls in a few weeks but he is the de facto 23rd member of the recruiting class.

It’s unlikely that we see much in the way of drama today. All of Washington’s verbal commits have affirmed at some point in the last week or two that they plan on signing today with the Huskies. The two late targets were DL Xavier Carlton and TE Jack Yary. Carlton canceled his official visit to Washington this past weekend and is expected to sign with Utah either today or in February. Yary completed his official visit but it appears he will wait to sign until February and take visits to both L.A schools. Washington may pursue other prospects more heavily after the early signing period has concluded and they have a better sense of the roster post-NFL entry deadline but as of now there shouldn’t be any surprise commitments to Washington.

Last year’s class was focused on defense and this one was slanted towards offense with 13 commitments on that side of the ball including 4 of their 5 highest rated. Of course there are still some serious dudes on D headlined by local OLB/DE Sav’ell Smalls who was the first consensus 5-star prospect to commit to Washington since Chris Petersen became the Huskies’ head coach.

If you’d like to see write-ups for each individual prospect as their signatures become official then head over to our UW Football Recruiting 2020 Early Signing Period Hub on the front page. The one labelled “Find Articles on Every Recruit As They Sign Right Here“. You may have guessed it but that is your one-stop shop for every article on the new recruits.

Otherwise, stick around here to discuss the class with the rest of your fellow Dawg fans throughout the day until our class recap comes out following the coach’s press conference this afternoon.

UPDATE 9:00am

All but 4 LOIs are in for Washington after an initial flurry this morning. Those belong to Elijah Jackson, Makell Esteen, Myles Murao, and Triston Brown. Jackson and Esteen are teammates and have said they will sign at a school ceremony later in the day. Murao tweeted on Saturday that he would be signing with Washington today. Unless a recruiting insider has specific information then there’s nothing to worry about as we wait on the last few signatures.

UPDATE 11:00a

Every LOI is now in except for OL Myles Murao. He has a school ceremony at 1p so it is expected that the signature will come in shortly after that. Below is a list of all of the currently signed recruits with their heights/weights as listed on 247 Sports compared to the official listings by the UW in their release. Heights are listed in inches.