SEATTLE — Former Washington backup quarterback K.J. Carta-Samuels will reportedly play the 2018 season at UCLA.
Carta-Samuels told CBS Sports Monday he plans to enroll at UCLA in the spring. Because Carta-Samuels is a graduate transfer, he’ll be immediately eligible to play for the Bruins.
It’s possible Carta-Samuels could see his former team with the Bruins hosting the Huskies on Oct. 6 at the Rose Bowl.
A four-star prospect, Carta-Samuels was considered by 247 Sports to be the nation’s No. 11 pro-style quarterback as a high school senior.
The Bay Area native was a U.S. Army All-American who signed with the Huskies in 2014. Carta-Samuels received a redshirt in his first year and won the Bob Jarvis Offensive Scout Squad MVP award.
Prior to the 2015 season, the Huskies signed another four-star quarterback in Jake Browning.
Browning won the starting job as a freshman and will hold onto the role going into his fourth and final year in 2018.
Carta-Samuels saw time in 25 games. He went 27 of 447 for 310 yards, three touchdowns and one interception while completing 57 percent of his passes.
There was some thought Carta-Samuels could follow former UW offensive coordinator Jonathan Smith to Corvallis, where Smith took over as Oregon State’s head coach.
Carta-Samuels told CBS he contemplated attending Colorado State or Iowa State before selecting UCLA.
Kelly, who went 46-7 in four seasons at Oregon, was in need of an experienced quarterback. UCLA lost star junior quarterback Josh Rosen after he declared in early January for the NFL Draft.
The Bruins currently have six quarterbacks, excluding Carta-Samuels, on their roster. Three are true freshmen, two are redshirt freshmen and the sixth is a redshirt junior.
As for the Huskies, they’ll have five quarterbacks going into 2018.
Browning aside, UW signed two four-star prospects in Jacob Sirmon and Colson Yankoff. The Huskies will also have redshirt freshman Jake Haener and redshirt sophomore Daniel Bridge-Gadd, who won the Arizona Gatorade Player of the Year in 2015.
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