What has happened previously, and what is going to happen next?
The situation involving University of Washington quarterback Demond Williams Jr. rocked college football to its very core on Tuesday night into Wednesday.
Let's start with the basics:
1) Williams just finished his sophomore season with the Huskies, leading them to a 9-4 record and a win in the LA Bowl.
2) Williams just announced he was returning to the Huskies in 2026. Reports circulated of him signing a new deal with Washington.
3) On Tuesday, it was announced that Williams would be entering the transfer portal, and from that point forward, all hell has broken loose.
How did we get here?
Well, there's really only two things that could have happened.
Either Williams signed the deal and then shopped it to other schools in order to see who could beat it, or another school came in and made him a new offer, illegally.
The prevailing thought has been that LSU is the school most interested in acquiring Williams.
What happens now?
Well Washington has said they are going to fight this and they've refused to put Williams' name in the transfer portal. It's unclear if they are trying to fight this in order to keep Williams on the roster for 2026, or if they are simply looking to receive financial compensation from offending parties. That will probably be hashed out over the coming months.
Ross Dellanger of Yahoo! Sports and On3 provided this additional information on Williams's agreement with Washington as part of a great thread:
- The agreement (1) prohibits a player from entering the portal once signed (this is why UW is refusing to enter his name into the portal) and (2) prohibits the player’s NIL rights to be used by any other school, though the player can sign outside marketing agreements.
MORE HUSKIES STORIES:
What does this mean?
The first part is self-explanatory: Washington is not going to let him in the portal. The second part means that any new school can't pay him NIL money directly, but they could simply set up outside money deals in order to get around that.
As a counter point, Mit Winter, a College Athletics Attorney, had this to say:
As mentioned yesterday, Demond Williams’ contract with Washington prohibits him from licensing his NIL rights in connection with another school.
Will be a big part of this dispute.
This isn’t an employment agreement, so UW can’t stop Williams from playing elsewhere.
Admittedly, we're not quite sure yet what this means. Can Williams un-enroll in school and then re-enroll in a new school? There's a lot to clear up but this is much is clear already, this story is not going away and it's going to continue to be ugly for the sport of college football.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION:
Remember to join our HUSKIES on ROUNDTABLE community, which is FREE! You can post your own thoughts, in text or video form, and you can engage with our Roundtable staff, as well as other Washington fans. If prompted to download the Roundtable APP, that's free too!