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Nick Montana leaving Washington

It has been a busy offseason of comings and goings at Washington, the latest being backup quarterback Nick Montana being granted his release to transfer on the day the Huskies hired super-recruiter Tosh Lupoi away from California.

Montana's decision is simple: He wants to play and he's not going to beat out Keith Price, who will be a junior next fall. Montana's plan is to go to a junior college first, then transfer to a four-year school. That way he can avoid sitting out and not seeing game action for a year.

"I've got three years [of college eligibility] left and I want to spend those on the field," he told the Seattle Times. "I don't want to wait another year. You only get one shot at playing college football so I just kind of made the best decision for me and I'm going with it.''

It doesn't seem like there are any hard feelings here. For one, Huskies coach Steve Sarkisian did the same thing when he was a college QB. Again from the Times:

"I just told [Sarkisian] straight up," he said. "He understood. He told me about how he transferred [from USC to El Camino and then to BYU] and how his career kind of went. So he was totally understanding and supported me in that and let me know if I need anything to just let me know. He was really supportive about the whole thing and that just made it that much easier for me. Obviously it's not an easy decision, but having him handle it the way he did made it a lot better for me."

Montana got one start for Price last season, and it was mostly forgettable. He completed 11 of 21 passes for 79 yards, two touchdowns and one interception in a 38-21 Huskies loss at Oregon State. Price, in fact, came off the bench to try to rally the offense in the fourth quarter.

What it means for the Huskies, however, is the depth behind Price has no experience. Redshirt freshman Derrick Brown appears to be the leading candidate for the backup job, but the Huskies have two touted incoming freshmen in Jeff Lindquist (Mercer Island, Wash.) and Cyler Miles (Denver).