Why Washington football added Trey Cooley from the transfer portal
The Washington Huskies added RB Trey Cooley from the transfer portal to bring another veteran presence to the position.
With a few weeks remaining before the start of spring practice, the Washington Huskies made a late transfer portal addition at running back in Trey Cooley . The 5-foot-10, 208-pound ball carrier came to Montlake by way of Troy after spending two years at both Louisville and Georgia Tech, where he amassed 1,009 yards and 6 touchdowns on the ground, along with 33 catches for 355 yards and 4 scores before a head injury shortened his senior year with the Yellow Jackets to just two games, and a summer knee injury ended his 2025 campaign before it even started. After adding Jayden Limar from Oregon through the portal in January, the Huskies seemed comfortable with relying on him to act as the veteran leader for a young room, headlined by sophomore Jordan Washington, redshirt freshman Quaid Carr, and true freshman Brian Bonner.
However, after a reassessment of the position, Fisch and running backs coach Scottie Graham believed another experienced mentor could help bring along the room. "The biggest thing was a veteran presence," Fisch said on Monday. "When you look at the room, there was Jayden...
who was a veteran, but not in our system, and then a lot of young ones that were kind of all relying on Jayden for, let's call it, some veteran leadership. We felt like, at that point in time, if we could add one more guy in that room that has some veteran leadership, that is a Georgia Tech graduate. He's got a degree from Tech, was part of a winning program, had carries a couple years ago, and then missed last year with an injury.
" "It reminded me of DJ Williams when we were at Arizona, where we brought DJ in from Auburn after he missed the whole year to be our extra set of eyes, ears, and legs, and DJ ended up in the NFL after having 80 carries with us for the season. So, I really just believe with one more addition, one more veteran presence, you start thinking as the season gets going, if Jayden's dinged up, where do you have your veteran presence? And that's why we felt like it was an opportunity to bring one more in.