Huard: The UW Huskies player whose draft stock rose at the Senior Bowl

UW Huskies right tackle Kaleb McGary has rarely been one to grab headlines throughout his college career, not that that has ever stopped him from putting together an impressive résumé.

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He started every Washington game of the last three seasons, was named All-Pac-12 First Team in 2017 and 2018, and won the Morris Trophy as the conference’s best O-lineman for 2018. He has some significant NFL Draft buzz building around him coming out of last week’s Senior Bowl, too

“The one guy that all of the folks I talked to kinda gave rave reviews was maybe the one name that’s talked about the least, and that’s Kaleb McGary,” 710 ESPN Seattle’s Brock Huard said Monday.

Plays like this, both during Saturday’s game and in the practices leading up to it, are a good reason why.

Boston College DE Zach Allen vs. Washington OL Kaleb McGary.#SeniorBowl pic.twitter.com/ZJWt1moR6H

— Chase Goodbread (@ChaseGoodbread) January 23, 2019

After talking to draft experts that watched the Fife product throughout the week in Mobile, Ala., Huard said McGary is now believed to be an early-round target for April’s draft.

“Everybody talked about (fellow UW lineman) Trey Adams for year after year after year – well, remember Kaleb McGary won the Morris Trophy, which goes to the top O-lineman in the Pac-12 as voted on by the defensive linemen,” Huard said of the 6-foot-6, 318-pound McGary. “He’s also a massive guy, a tremendous athlete, I think a really good right tackle fit, and according to some of those guys they do not think he’d get beyond the second round of this draft.”

WSU Cougars quarterback Gardner Minshew didn’t fare as well at the Senior Bowl. He completed just 1 of 8 attempts for 4 yards on Saturday, and while the game isn’t all that NFL scouts watch, he didn’t help himself out earlier in the week, either.

“He struggled over the course of the week,” Huard said of Minshew. “At the beginning of last week, we talked about he needs to do. He needs to flash his arm, in particularly the intermediate to deep throws that you gotta make at the NFL level. … I don’t get too caught up in the stats of the actual game, and the NFL evaluators don’t either. It was more the body of work over the five days in Mobile, where it was windy, where it was rainy, where it wasn’t ideal (weather), and unfortunately his arm strength did not necessarily cut through.”

For Huard’s full thoughts, find the Blue 42 segment of Monday’s edition of Brock and Salk.

You can hear Huard answer three football questions every weekday morning during Blue 42 at 7:45 a.m. Listen to Brock and Salk Monday-Friday from 7 a.m. – 10 a.m. 

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