UW Safeties Far From Settled, But McLaughlin Pulls Good Grades

As the Huskies get ready to go to work, McLaughlin has been singled out by Pro Football Focus for grading out as the second-highest returning safety in the Big Ten based his past performance at Northern Arizona.

With an 88.5 score, he's exceeded only by Minnesota's Koi Perich, who has an 88.9 rating built primarily against other conference teams.

McLaughlin started all 23 games he played for his Big Sky entry, dealing with in-season surgery that temporarily sat him down as a freshman. He piled up 157 career tackles, 12 pass break-ups, 6 interceptions and 7 sacks. He was both a first- and a second-team All-Big Sky pick.

During spring ball, the Arizona native rotated between the No. 1 and 2 defenses, with safeties coach Taylor Mays indicating the biggest thing that McLaughlin needed was repetitions in learning the UW way of doing things.

While Esteen and McLaughlin stand to battle for the free safety spot, they could end up side by side, with the latter capable of playing either as a coverage or as a run-support safety in the Husky secondary.

Florida International transfer CJ Christian seemed to come out of spring ball as the starter at the strong safety spot, but the UW will have a month to determine who it wants among Esteen, McLaughlin, Christian and likely Vince Holmes to be as the starters against Colorado State on August 30 in Husky Stadium.

For now, McLaughlin comes with the highest PFF rating among his fellow safeties in Montlake.

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