The sophomore safety is recovered from a shoulder injury that forced him to miss the 2025 season.
Spring football will open on Tuesday afternoon for the University of Washington football team, with roughly 55 healthy returning players suiting up alongside more than 30 available freshmen and transfer portal additions.
Looking over all of this assembled talent, people will not only check out the featured players such as sophomore offensive guard John Mills, junior quarterback Demond Williams Jr. and senior safety Alex McLaughlin, they'll also keep an eye out for someone who comes out of the woodwork and makes a move. With everyone possessing a modicum of talent just to get an invitation to Montlake, one never knows when the light will go for one of these guys battling through intense competition and/or a spate of injuries to get noticed. Someone to keep a close watch on, according to departing edge rusher Zach Durfee, is sophomore safety Rahim Wright II.Wright is one of six UW players returning to duty after missing anywhere from a third of last season to all of it. He's joined by a fellow safety in senior CJ Christian, sophomore wide receiver Justice Williams, junior wide receiver Rashid Williams, senior edge rusher Isaiah Ward and senior center Landen Hatchett. The 5-foot-11, 197-pound Wright enters his third UW football season after coming out of Fontana, California, and signing with Arizona, only to redirect to Washington once coach Jedd Fisch and his staff changed jobs. Wright played in his first game for the Huskies in the 2024 season opener against Weber State before redshirting for the rest of that season and missing all of 2025, with 25 games played without him in that time. A year ago, he came up limping in spring practice No. 11 after enjoying a week of interceptions and pass break-ups, and was done.Once the games began, Wright walked out wearing a sling while dealing with a season-ending shoulder injury. Athletic enough, he initially played quarterback for Rancho Cucamonga High School in Southern California and was one of the state's leading long jumpers with a 23-foot, 1-inch top jump.This spring, the Huskies are looking for another first-unit safety to line up alongside returning 13-game starter and honors candidate Alex McLaughlin. Ready candidates for this position vacancy include sophomore Rylon "Batman" Dillard-Allen, sophomore Paul Mencke Jr., freshman Gavin Day, Christian and, of course, the fully recovered Wright.Loading recommendations... Please wait while we load personalized content recommendationsDan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.
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