Washington officially lands ex-Georgia QB Jacob Eason

It’s official: Jacob Eason is joining the Washington football program.

Eason, a five-star prospect in the 2016 recruiting class, signed with Georgia and quickly became the program’s starting quarterback. However, after a Week 1 injury in 2017, he was supplanted in the starting lineup by freshman Jake Fromm. With Fromm entrenched as the starter, Eason opted to leave Athens.

Washington was a natural landing spot for Eason, who hails from Lake Stevens, Washington, which is about an hour north of the UW campus in Seattle.

In announcing the addition of Eason, Washington used a homecoming theme.

Adding Eason to the roster is significant for the Huskies. UW will have a vacancy at quarterback once Jake Browning’s eligibility expires after the 2018 season. Eason will sit out in 2018 to satisfy NCAA transfer requirements but could presumably slide into a starting role for Chris Petersen in 2019.

Eason threw for 2,430 yards, 16 touchdowns and eight interceptions as a true freshman in 2016, completing 55.1 percent of his passes along the way. He opened 2017 as the starter, but suffered a knee injury in the opener against Appalachian State. He was healthy a few weeks later, but Fromm played well in Eason’s absence, so the UGA staff decided to continue on with Fromm as the starter. Fromm led the Bulldogs all the way to a national runner-up finish.

In addition to Eason and Browning, who was started the last three seasons, UW has four other quarterbacks on scholarship entering 2018: redshirt sophomore Daniel Bridge-Gadd, redshirt freshman Jake Haener and true freshman Jacob Sirmon and Colson Yankoff. Sirmon and Yankoff, both four-star class of 2018 recruits, enrolled early for the spring semester.

Washington went 10-3 in 2017, finishing the season with a loss to Penn State in the Fiesta Bowl.

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Sam Cooper is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!

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