Washington could have a big in-state class
DerekJohnson
Administrator, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 65,595 
Derek Colman-Brusa’s personal goal for his senior season at Kennedy Catholic: 20 sacks.
He had 14 as a sophomore and 12 as a junior, and figures that number would have been higher if not for the Lancers winning nine consecutive games last season by at least 22 points (and four by 50-plus). That meant lots of running clocks, and many second halves spent on the sideline.
“They want to save me for the playoffs and everything. I’m a guy about the team — “we” over “me” kind of deal,” Colman-Brusa said. “But I really want to try and get it this year.”
The state’s top-ranked recruit visited Washington over the weekend for its “Junior Day” event. It’s hard to say there were many (any?) prospects in attendance more important to coach Jedd Fisch’s recruiting efforts than Colman-Brusa, the No. 170-ranked recruit in the 2026 class, per the 247Sports Composite.
The Huskies would love for Colman-Brusa to headline what is already shaping up as a class heavy on in-state recruits. Before Wednesday, four of UW’s seven commitments were from in-state prospects; that figure is now three of six after Eastside Catholic linebacker Wassie Lugolobi announced a flip to Stanford.
Elijah Durr, a 6-foot-1 cornerback from Mount Tahoma, committed after visiting over the weekend. Puyallup offensive lineman Ah Deong Yang and Vancouver Evergreen receiver Terrance Saryon were already on board. Colman-Brusa obviously is a key target, as are O’Dea edge rushers David Schwerzel and Fameitau Siale, and Bethel linebacker Ramzak Fruean was on campus over the weekend, too.
Losing Lugolobi is a blow — if not terribly surprising, considering the departure of former linebackers coach Robert Bala — but this cycle, combined with Fisch’s in-state progress in 2025, still could signal a return to the days of UW heavily recruiting its home territory.
Under Chris Petersen and then Jimmy Lake, the Huskies signed six in-state prospects each in 2017, 2020 and 2021. Kalen DeBoer signed three in-state recruits — Ferndale offensive lineman Landen Hatchett, Rainier Beach cornerback Caleb Presley and Emerald Ridge edge rusher Jacob Lane — in 2023, his first full class.
But the Huskies didn’t sign a single in-state player in DeBoer’s 2024 class, even if Garfield’s Rahshawn Clark wound up flipping to UW from Arizona following Fisch’s departure. Other top prospects that year included Yelm linebacker Brayden Platt (Oregon), O’Dea offensive lineman Isendre Ahfua (Texas A&M); Bellevue tight end Hogan Hansen (Michigan); Vancouver Evergreen offensive lineman Fox Crader (Oregon); and O’Dea running back Jason Brown (Arizona State).
The drought would only have lasted one class. On Jan. 8, 2024, before the Huskies lost to Michigan in the national championship game, four-star Bethel linebacker Zaydrius Rainey-Sale announced he would stay home to play for UW. He backed off that pledge after DeBoer left for Alabama, but Fisch’s staff made him Priority No. 1 upon arriving in Seattle, and Rainey-Sale signed in December as the top-rated player in Fisch’s first full class at UW.
“On the plane, on the way here, he was a topic of discussion,” Matt Doherty, UW’s senior director of player personnel, said in December. “He stands alone in terms of the stature that he kind of carried throughout the process, and obviously, everybody involved should be excited about what he brings into the fold.”
They’d be pretty excited for Colman-Brusa, too. He plays a premium position — and plays it well, and now plays it, he says, at 6-foot-5 and 265 pounds — and because he plays his games just a quick trip down I-5 from UW’s campus. Oh, and his older brother, Lowen, an offensive lineman, was one of five in-state prospects to sign with the Huskies in their 2025 class, and will enroll at UW right about the time Derek should be ready to announce his college decision.
He wants to make it known before the season, he said, around the end of summer, and after he’s taken official visits — already scheduled — to Washington (May 2), UCLA (May 16), USC (June 6), Ohio State (June 13) and, perhaps most critically, Oregon (June 20).
Colman-Brusa says he has no frontrunner(s) among the five, though it stands to reason that Ohio State and Oregon — the reigning national champion and the reigning No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff — should present the biggest challenge for Washington. He has an unofficial visit scheduled for Oregon this weekend and plans to attend Ohio State’s spring game. You might see him a time or two with his brother at UW spring practice, too.
UW’s junior day was an opportunity for him to get better acquainted with a Huskies coaching staff that has changed over the past few months. Colman-Brusa is plenty familiar with the school and campus, but said he enjoyed meeting with new defensive coordinator Ryan Walters to learn more about his scheme. He also met with Fisch, defensive line coach Jason Kaufusi and Ben Creamer, UW’s director of sports science.
“I really got to learn about their background and where they’re coming from, and their scheme and everything,” Colman-Brusa said. “They see me as a defensive end/outside backer. Walters runs that bear front, that five-man front, so I’d be one of the edge rushers.”
He has two clear priorities as he considers his options: NFL development and culture.
“I want to play under really great people,” he said. “Take football away — who’s going to care for me?”
He said he hears from UW “very often,” and Kaufusi, in particular, “maybe every other day,”
Of UW’s 2024 season, Colman-Brusa said: “I thought they had a really, really quick turnaround there. It’s kind of rough having a new staff and everything, new players, new scheme. But I thought they turned it around really quick, and they’re kind of on that uprise, as of right now.”
That was true of recruiting last cycle, and the Huskies need to sign players like Colman-Brusa to continue the trend. In addition to Rainey-Sale and Lowen Colman-Brusa, UW also signed Auburn Riverside linebacker Jonathan Epperson — a three-star prospect, but the No. 2-rated player in the state by 247Sports — plus Spanaway Lake cornerback D’Aryhian Clemons and Kamiak edge rusher Victor Sanchez Hernandez.
It’s part of what appears to be a concerted push by Fisch and his staff to keep as many prospects home as is feasible.
“The philosophy will always be, let’s make sure they’re good enough,” Doherty said in December, “but let’s certainly invest and spend double the time that we would anywhere else, on the evaluation process here. Because getting it right here means that much more to everybody that comes out and supports this program.”
If you can believe it, Derek Colman-Brusa first played football when he was 6 years old, but quit after two years. “I didn’t really enjoy it,” he said. “I was always a taller, bigger, stronger kid, so I always played up, so I never really fit in with the guys.” He switched to soccer, playing against kids his age, and loved it. He decided, though, going into eighth grade — seventh, actually, but the pandemic wiped that season out — that he was tired of people running away from him with no repercussions.
“Man, I want to hit somebody,” he thought.
He does it now as both an edge rusher and offensive tackle. Colman-Brusa’s highlights show fearsome speed and strength, often too much for the overmatched linemen trying to block him, and coaches voted him the 4A NPSL Player of the Year last season. Lowen, meanwhile, took home first-team all-league honors on both sides of the ball as a senior.
Derek said his older brother tried to coax him back to football during his years away from the game, and of course wants him to join him at UW.
“But he also knows that I have a big decision to make,” Derek said, “and he wants me to go where it’s right for me.”
The Huskies hope those 20 sacks aren’t the last he makes as a Washington resident.
— Christian Caple, On Montlake
Comments
Thanks Taft!
there’s something to be said to build your program around lunch pail locals. Now when a few of them become legit, after a couple years, will they chase bags or stay true to their first love…