New Washington Safety Commit Brandon McKinney Opens Up on Decision

Since his sophomore year when Washington defensive backs coach Jimmy Lake first began to recruit him, Brandon McKinney knew UW was going to be the school for him. After having a couple of earlier unofficial visits to Seattle not workout this spring, McKinney made the trip north this weekend and made his decision official.

"I felt good about Washington since I took my first visit so I wanted to come and make sure I liked everything for the final time," McKinney told Rivals on Sunday. "I really felt comfortable with Coach Petersen and the interest he instilled in me. Ultimately I felt comfortable and knew I wanted to play football for the next four years at Washington."

McKinney, a 6'1, 190-pound safety, had been leaning toward the Huskies for a couple of months, despite taking a couple of other unofficial visits to USC and Colorado among others.

However, with now fellow UW commits Terrell Bynum and Keith Taylor recruiting him heavy and often to Washington, the four-star prospect is happy to have his recruitment done and over.

"It feels good to be able to focus on my senior year and ball out with my high school," McKinney said. "I'm really excited to play college ball at UDub. I hungout with some of the commits like Ariel [Ngata], and Keith and Terrell for a little bit, and hangout with Coach Lake a lot."

Lake put in a lot of work to recruit McKinney for over a year and with his NFL pedigree translating well to the Huskies' secondary, it was a major selling point for the four-star safety.

"He's been in the NFL for years and talked and coached the best," McKinney said of Lake. "Ronde Barber - he's coached them all for years so bringing that to the collegiate level, I really wanted to be a part of that and getting the experience. He also really wanted me to be a Dawg. He's been really loyal to me and I liked that, so I wanted to be a part of that."

Lastly, having a proven college head coach like Chris Petersen, was all that was needed to seal the deal for McKinney to become a Husky.

"He's a winner," he said. "He also does care about your life too. The Built For Life program really stuck out to me and that means he really cares and he wants the best for his players and their career. So learning from him and seeing what he likes to teach, I pulled the trigger."

McKinney said his official visit will most likely come in January, after the season, when the coaches have more time to spend with prospects compared to game day.