QB Will Rogers Withdraws from Portal, Returns to UW

Washington has spent the last approximately 24 hours without a quarterback on its roster after early 2024 entry Dermaricus Davis entered the transfer portal. It wasn’t a good place to be. That status is now over as former Mississippi State star Will Rogers has withdrawn from the transfer portal and will return to Washington who he committed to for the first time last month. The news was first reported by Pete Thamel of ESPN.

Rogers originally committed to the Huskies when the head coach was Kalen DeBoer, the OC was Ryan Grubb, and Michael Penix Jr. had just finished 2nd place in the Heisman race. He enrolled at Washington for winter quarter and was in attendance and in uniform (though not eligible to play) at the national title game.

Then of course, DeBoer left later that week for Alabama taking the entire offensive coaching staff with him. Rogers understandably chose to re-enter the portal to see if there was a better fit for him with a new coaching staff coming. Alabama already had Jalen Milroe so following DeBoer wasn’t an option given they didn’t need someone with 1 year of eligibility remaining. Most other programs already had a plan A in place at quarterback and it seemed clear that no school of the caliber of Washington had as open a path to a starting job as if he stayed at UW and resumed classes.

Washington now has Rogers on the roster immediately and has Arizona transfer/2024 commit Demond Williams Jr. set to enroll starting spring quarter. Williams was an early enrollee at Arizona but flipped to the Huskies to follow Coach Fisch and staff.

The Huskies saw their entire quarterback depth chart for 2024 leave at one point or another this offseason. Michael Penix Jr. ran out of eligibility and will now prepare for the NFL Draft. Upcoming 6th year senior Dylan Morris appeared to have been told by the DeBoer staff that he was unlikely to win the starting job in his last year of eligibility and transferred to James Madison (it’s unknown what would’ve happened with Rogers if Morris had still been on the roster when the coaching change occurred). William Haskell entered the transfer portal after coming in last summer from San Diego State. And 2024 early enrollee Dermaricus Davis entered the transfer portal yesterday after Williams committed.

With Rogers officially on board again it should hopefully allow Coach Fisch to try to stabilize the roster. The Huskies currently only have 62 of their 85 scholarship spots spoken for given all of the portal entries/decommitments from both veterans and 2024 signees. The hope is that with the SEC’s 2nd leading all-time passer on board it can help provide a clear path to wins for this upcoming season and restore some faith in Fisch’s ability to right the ship immediately.

You can keep track of all of the offseason player movement with our tracker at this link and we’ll have plenty more over the coming days, weeks, and months with what should be an extremely busy…