The Husky Haul
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Sam Adams can win Washington football’s first Heisman

By Roman Tomashoff

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - NOVEMBER 29: The Washington Huskies pose with the Apple Cup trophy after defeating the Washington State Cougars 31-13 during their game at Husky Stadium on November 29, 2019 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Abbie Parr/Getty Images)
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - NOVEMBER 29: The Washington Huskies pose with the Apple Cup trophy after defeating the Washington State Cougars 31-13 during their game at Husky Stadium on November 29, 2019 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Abbie Parr/Getty Images) /
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Washington football has never had a Heisman winner, but one member of the 2020 class has a great chance to be the Huskies’ first

By now, you’re probably sick and tired of hearing about Washington football’s incredible recruiting class (even though you shouldn’t be) and Wednesday is the beginning of the early signing period, and we’ll see most, if not all the 22 current commits in the class sign their national letter of intent to Washington.

Among those recruits is Sam Adams II, who’s currently listed as an athlete by 247 Sports, but projects as a running back for the Huskies. In high school, at one of the state of Washington’s best programs, Eastside Catholic, Adams was able to line up at receiver, cornerback, and as a punt returner as well as at running back. And if there’s one thing the Heisman committee loves, it’s versatility from a running back.

Why Adams?

Adams is a special player on the field, he combines great size, with elite skills out of the backfield and the versatility to be used as a wide receiver when needed to, which at the college level is the most desirable talent from any running back nowadays. His great hands, superior field vision, and versatility makes him look a lot like Le’Veon Bell. With that kind of versatility within the offense, and the talent around him along the offensive line and at wide receiver, he won’t be seeing a lot of stacked boxes when he runs between the tackles.

The Husky offense has been kind to running backs as of late, we saw four straight 1200+ yard seasons from Myles Gaskin, and Salvon Ahmed ran for 1000 yards on the nose before the bowl game. Washington’s offense under Chris Petersen wasn’t designed for a lot of passes to running backs, they combined for just 25 of the team’s 238 receptions in 2019, but it’s possible for that to change going forward under Jimmy Lake. Adams brings such a unique and wide range of skill sets to the program that it’ll be impossible to not design some plays to get him the ball out wide or coming out of the backfield.

It’s impossible to predict what kind of numbers Adams will put up with the Huskies, but what’s certain is that he’s going to be utilized in many different ways, maybe not as frequently, but it’ll be very similar to how Stanford used Christian McCaffrey during his time there. Combining that with all the other talent and free space Adams is going to have to work with, we could definitely see him in New York for the trophy presentation.

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