SEATTLE — To reset his college football career, Christian Moss went home.
To finish it, the Kennesaw, Ga., native is living on Pacific Time, enjoying mild temperatures while catching touchdown passes on Big Ten turf.
“This is my first time ever even on the West Coast, in general,” the sixth-year receiver said after Wednesday’s practice, another beneath blue skies at Husky Stadium.
At 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds, Moss is a prototypical “X” receiver in coach Jedd Fisch’s offense, a big-bodied split end expected to beat press coverage and make contested catches downfield, something he’s done well through the first 10 practices of camp.
The past two seasons, that was Denzel Boston, a second-round pick and now a training-camp standout for the Cleveland Browns. For two years before that, at Arizona, it was Tetairoa McMillan, the No. 8 pick in this year’s NFL Draft.
It’s sort of an important position, in other words, and one at which the Huskies had no obvious successor, with Boston off to the NFL and size lacking among their returning wideouts. UW was connected to a few other veteran receiver targets — such as Syracuse transfer Darrell Gill Jr., who wound up at Mississippi — but checked off nearly every other portal need before finally signing Moss.
The Huskies identified him from the start, receivers coach Kevin Cummings said, but his portal experience was more complicated than most.