Following 175-yard performance last month, UW wideout Jalen McMillan looking to ‘keep building forward’
When Washington needed an offensive spark last month, following consecutive losses the first two weeks of the season, Jalen McMillan responded with a career game in the Week 3 win over Arkansas State.
The freshman wideout caught a career-high 10 passes on 11 targets to contribute to the 52-3 rout inside Husky Stadium. No Huskies receiver has hauled in more passes in a single game through five weeks.
Five of his catches were for more than 10 yards. Three of them — including the 33-yard pass he snared down the sideline as he sprinted into the end zone in the second quarter for his first career touchdown, were for more than 30. His end result of a career-best 175 yards is the single-game high for any Huskies receiver this season, and the most by a UW player since John Ross piled up 206 against Cal in his final college season in 2016.
McMillan had one career catch entering that game, but was quick to announce himself as a reliable receiving option in his first full game of this season, catching passes on five of the six offensive series that led to touchdowns against Arkansas State.
When it was over, Huskies quarterback Dylan Morris described the second-year receiver as a “technician” on this offense.
“He can get open at the line in short space, and he has so much speed on that deep ball he can just get open,” Morris said then. “And it’s comfortable for me to put (the ball) out there for him. I know he’s going to go up and get it.
“And the plays he made definitely brought some juice to our whole team.”
McMillan reflected on that breakout game following practice Tuesday afternoon, saying it was “an unreal feeling to score and have all those touches.”
“But, I wouldn’t be able to do that without the team, without my coach, without the players in the room either,” he continued. “So, just being able to do that made me realize what I can do at the college level, and what I need to do in order to keep building forward.”
McMillan was a consensus four-star recruit at San Joaquin Memorial (Fresno, Calif.) High School, where he finished with 260 catches, 5,234 yards and 54 receiving touchdowns in his career. He played in 50 games in four seasons there. He tallied 100-plus yards receiving in 25 of those games, 200-plus yards in five of them, and in one game his sophomore season against Lemoore High School, put up a career-high 369. He also had at least one receiving touchdown in 35 games in his career, including six in that same win over Lemoore.
He was the top offensive recruit in UW’s 2020 signing class, and considered the No. 6 wide receiver and No. 38 overall recruit nationally that year by 247Sports.com. He and Huskies wide receiver Rome Odunze were also both part of The News Tribune’s 2020 Western 100 class.
When he arrived in Seattle, McMillan appeared in three games of the shortened four-game season last fall, including hauling in a 16-yard pass from Morris in UW’s loss to Stanford last December for his first career catch.
Following a solid spring and start to fall camp, he was expected to be one of the Huskies’ three starting wideouts — along with Terrell Bynum and Odunze — to open the season, but was delayed two games when he injured his hand the second week of practices. He said he was initially projected to be out four-to-six weeks, but he made it back in three, and said he focused on staying positive.
“Stay positive, and keep your head up and just grind like you’re going to play tomorrow,” McMillan said.
He said he worked on strengthening his grip again by catching softballs and then gradually progressing to footballs. He returned to the field for limited snaps during the Huskies’ loss to Michigan in Week 2, but was not targeted. Then came his breakout performance against Arkansas State.
Huskies wide receivers coach Junior Adams said he has seen McMillan continue to progress during the two seasons he’s spent in UW’s program.
“He’s growing as an individual and as a person,” Adams said. “To me that was the first step for him, when he started maturing, and growing, and locking in, and understanding how to practice, how to go about the college day-to-day life.
“He’s one of the guys that when he was out, I mean literally he would be here at 6:30 in the morning, and we wouldn’t have meetings until I think 9 a.m., 8:30. And he’ll be here at 6:30, one of the first guys in the building. And he got the install before anybody else did. And then we’ll watch some wide receiver fundamentals. And, he just learned how to work consistently on a day-to-day basis.
“We always talk about being a PRO — and that’s prepared, ready and organized — and that’s the step he’s taken. Is he there yet? No, but he’s growing and he’s trending in the right direction.”
So what is the next step McMillan said he wants to take in his game?
“Just being consistent,” he said. “Being a PRO, and being able to dial in my technique, and (the) playbook, and everything.”
He seems to have all the tools he needs to continue to build, has 15 catches for 221 yards and two touchdowns in the three games he has been targeted, and is averaging 14.7 yards per reception.
UW coach Jimmy Lake put it simply last month, when asked what McMillan brings to this young and talented receivers room — “He’s tall, he’s fast and he catches the ball.”
“He’s a special player down the field in terms of catching the ball and running by defenders, but he’s also very, very shifty underneath, and he’s a hard guy to tackle,” Lake said last month. “I love his competitive nature. You can feel that in practice. He wants to go up and get it.
“He’s got good size. He’s got good length up in the air. He can jump. He can run. That’s what you want your wide receivers to look like, and so it’s nice having him back.”
This story was originally published October 12, 2021 at 6:13 PM.
