SEATTLE - Washington has spent the offseason preaching a simple standard under Jedd Fisch: “the best players will play.” That message has opened the door for young talent, and few freshmen have stepped into it more firmly than Kodi Greene.
Greene, a true freshman and the Huskies’ highest-rated recruit in the Class of 2026, has spent the offseason working as the de facto starting left tackle. Washington signed a class that ranked 12th in the country per 247Sports, and Greene entered campus with plenty of national buzz: the 26th-best player in the country, the third-best offensive tackle and the third-best player in California according to the 247Sports composite.
What has stood out since then is not just the ranking, but the way Greene has handled the daily grind around him. He’s learning from veteran help on the line, including second-year guard John Mills, who followed a similar path as a true freshman starter last season and earned Freshman All-American honors by several publications.
He’s also been thrown into the deep end in practice. Greene has gone against Washington’s defensive front all camp, facing edge rushers like fourth-year Jacob Lane and fifth-year Isaiah Ward, along with the team’s fastest defensive lineman, fellow first-year edge rusher Ramzak Fruean.
“The biggest thing with (Greene) as an 18-year-old is just confidence,” Fifth-year offensive lineman and right tackle Drew Azzopardi said after practice Saturday. “That’s something I lacked when I was a freshman.
I was once 18 also coming in. But I wasn’t coming in at a Power Four program.
He already had a lot of confidence but I just wanted to keep instilling that into him and keep giving him little tips like strike-timing, knowing his arm length, little things on plays that he maybe didn’t run in high school or have experience with. But he’s come along great so far.”
That word - confidence - has come up repeatedly this camp when teammates and coaches talk about Greene. The staff knows a true freshman is going to have growing pains, but they also see a player whose ability is impossible to ignore.
By the time Washington opens the season against Washington State on Sept. 6, that confidence may be the trait that carries Greene through the challenges ahead in the Big Ten.
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