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Washington football: Sirmon and Yankoff enter transfer portal

By Roman Tomashoff

SEATTLE, WA - APRIL 27: Washington Huskies quarterback Colson Yankoff (7) passes the ball during the University of Washington Spring Game at Husky Stadium on Saturday, April 27, 2019 in Seattle, WA. (Photo by Joseph Weiser/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
SEATTLE, WA - APRIL 27: Washington Huskies quarterback Colson Yankoff (7) passes the ball during the University of Washington Spring Game at Husky Stadium on Saturday, April 27, 2019 in Seattle, WA. (Photo by Joseph Weiser/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /
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Two former Washington football top recruits have entered the transfer portal… so what’s next?

Washington football signed three very talented quarterbacks in the 2018/19 recruiting circuits in Jacob Sirmon and Colson Yankoff in 2018, and Dylan Morris in 2019. Add that in with Jacob Eason, the five-star transfer, and there’s a ton of talent in the quarterback’s room. Is that a problem for us as fans? Absolutely not, getting elite talent at every position is crucial to winning a national championship and the Huskies did an excellent job of stockpiling it at the QB position.

The issue? It’s pretty obvious, only one of them can play. This situation seemed to be inevitable after we learned that Eason was going to be transferring back home to Washington after losing the starting job at Georgia to Jake Fromm. But what truly hurts is losing two elite quarterbacks… well, let me backtrack a little, just because they entered the transfer portal doesn’t mean they’re gone, it just gives other schools a chance to contact them. But in all likelihood, at least one of them is leaving the program.

There’s also a wild card in this equation named Jake Haener. Haener, who probably has the lowest ceiling in the quarterback’s room, but is still a very talented player, has been taking reps away from both Sirmon and Yankoff all spring due to seniority. This is a major issue. Sirmon has been learning the Husky playbook since he was a senior in high school, and the fact that the Husky coaching staff won’t even give him reps with the #1 offense because of Haener’s seniority is appalling.

None of this should say anything about Yankoff or Sirmon’s “drive to compete,” because both guys have potential to make the NFL, and they want to make the most of their time in college so they can actually get there. But if they’re sitting behind Jacob Eason, maybe get one year of starting experience while competing to simply get starting reps because Haener has “seniority” if Eason decides to leave after 2019, and then also having to compete with five-star Sam Huard in 2021, it just doesn’t seem to be in the cards for both QB’s to stick around. We also can’t forget Dylan Morris, another promising quarterback who could end up proving himself this summer and steal more of their reps.

Is Huard guaranteed the starting job as soon as he steps on campus in 2021? Of course he isn’t, this has more to do with the fact that Chris Petersen simply has to “trust” his guys, and he loves giving reps to the guys with seniority because they’ve simply been around the program longer. Yankoff and Sirmon both have much higher ceilings than Haener, and it really was disappointing to see them both not take any reps with the first team offense in the spring showcase, because they both have first-round NFL potential.

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