Jeremiah Hunter and Washington: It's a funny story

Why the California receiver transfer chose the Huskies (twice), and other thoughts from UW camp.

SEATTLE — Though he had yet to enroll, Jeremiah Hunter was in Seattle when he found out he would not be playing for Kalen DeBoer at Washington.

Hunter was on his official visit, eating breakfast with his parents and Darnell Duckett, a former UW recruiting assistant, when he glanced at Instagram and saw a post about DeBoer leaving to replace Nick Saban at Alabama.

California’s top receiver the past two seasons had committed in late December to transfer to Washington for his senior year. Hunter was drawn, he said, to a program and offense “that just looked like they were having fun.” His official visit mere days after Washington’s loss to Michigan in the national championship game was presumably intended as little more than a formality.

Instead, Hunter flew home knowing little about his immediate future. He didn’t see DeBoer on the visit, he said, and former receivers coach JaMarcus Shephard didn’t have much information, telling him only: “I might get a job here, I might get a job at Bama. I don’t know.”

You can’t accuse Hunter, though, of taking any part of last winter’s coaching carousel too seriously.

“It was funny,” he said after Washington’s Tuesday training camp practice. “I thought it was hilarious.”