Before Robert Wyrsch began his sophomore year at Soquel High School football wasn’t even on his radar.

Despite boasting an ideal frame at 6-foot-7 and 270-pounds, Wyrsch played baseball for most of his life up to high school. He continued to play basketball through the first two years of his high school career before he found the gridiron.

In the middle of the Knights 2018 season Wyrsch decided to attend one of their home games.

The physical nature of the game immediately drew his attention and shortly thereafter he began playing for Soquel on junior varsity. Less than two years later, Wyrsch is committed to playing football at the University of Washington.

“All my friends that were on the team were like ‘you got to come out and play football. It’s something you’ll never see before,” he said. “So I watched a couple games and I was hooked. I had to get on that field and play.”

In late February UW offensive line coach Scott Huff started to evaluate Wyrsch more and began to develop a strong relationship with the Northern California prospect. Over the last month the interest continued to ramp up on the Huskies end which resulted in the lineman receiving a scholarship offer.

“Earlier this week, and a little bit before too, they really started talking to me and then they offered and I was beyond excited,” Wyrsch said. “After they offered I really had to do a bunch of research on every school that was talking to me, just to weight out all my options so I could make the best decision for myself, which was UDub."

Seven schools offered Wyrsch before UW added its name to his list; Fresno State, Harvard, Northern Arizona, San Jose State, UNLV, UPenn and Yale.

While the Huskies were the only Power Five offer for Wyrsch, the research he did on Huff and his track record for developing offensive lineman stood out the most for the junior.

For Huff, the long frame Wyrsch possesses is an ideal addition to the UW offensive line as he projects long-term. However, there’s more than just his length that appealed to the Huskies' assistant coach.

“I’m a very aggressive person. I love getting after it. I love hitting people. I love contact. It’s something that drives me,” he said. “I’m also very mobile for my size, which I take a lot of pride in. Put a lot of work in to that.

“I do a lot of work in sand with ladders, sprints, side to side movements, backpedals and forward pedals. Just everything you can possibly think of to increase my footwork, my speed and everything like that.”

With the addition of Wyrsch to the 2021 class the Huskies now have six verbal commitments; three on offense and three on defense.

UW has the No. 30 ranked class in the nation based on Rivals’ team rankings for this years’ cycle, third best in the Pac-12 Conference behind USC (No. 11) and Oregon (No. 25).