Huskies Lose One OL Transfer, Gain Another

It was a wild 6 minutes on social media for Washington’s offensive line today as the Huskies lost one commitment but gained another across the unit. Old Dominion transfer Chris Adams who pledged to UW last week announced via Instagram that he has flipped his commitment to Memphis while Ohio State transfer Enokk Vimahi committed to the Dawgs. Vimahi’s announcement came via his NIL platform, a sign of the new era we are in these days.

The 6’4, 313 lb Vimahi was one of two elite prospects out of the state of Hawai’i in the class of 2019 along with Washington DL Faatui Tuitele. He was the #124 overall recruit in the country and opted to commit to Ohio State over offers from just about every major program in the nation. It looked like his career was off to a bright start after seeing time as a reserve at left guard as a true freshman but Vimahi never quite broke through. He has played 375 snaps over the past 5 seasons for the Buckeyes across all 5 positions but only started 2 games: the season finale against Michigan in 2022 and this year’s bowl game against Missouri.

The majority of Vimahi’s experience has come at the guard spots with 289 of those 375 snaps coming at either left or right guard. He should be expected to come in right away and challenge for a starting position on one side of the center or the other with the Huskies given the state of their offensive line. But Washington also took a transfer in Miami’s Logan Sagapolu who had only appeared at offensive guard in his career and switched him to defense so we’ll see what the plan is for Vimahi’s usage.

The Vimahi news wasn’t fully additive because of the announcement by Chris Adams that he is now committed to Memphis. This is the second time that Washington has seemingly lost their potential starting left tackle for this upcoming fall to that part of the country. SMU transfer OT Marcus Bryant appeared to have done all but publicly announce a commitment to Washington before reversing course and instead committing to Missouri. Adams wasn’t as sure of a thing to start for the Huskies but made his verbal to Washington public before suddenly posting a committed to Memphis graphic and scrubbing all UW items from his social media.

Washington only had 9 healthy offensive linemen for last Friday’s spring game and several of those were walk-ons. Gaard Memmelaar is expected to be healthy by this fall’s opener but it is much less certain that Landen Hatchett, who would likely be the favorite to be the starting center, will be ready by then. The Huskies could still use another OL or two through the portal. Husky fans though can look forward to 3 months of theory crafting before the first practice report in August and the only thing that’s certain is that the starting 5 against Weber State will be different from the one we saw in the spring game.