4-star pass rusher McCarron from Washington commits to UVA over Virginia Tech, Boise and Washington State

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Posted on Tuesday, Apr. 21, 2020, 7:43 pm

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By Jerry Ratcliffe

Josh McCarron (Photo: heraldnet.com)

Virginia’s football program just landed its future pass rusher, Josh McCarron, a four-star sack machine from Everett, Washington.

The 6-foot-4, 215-pound defensive end/outside linebacker from Archbishop Murphy HS chose UVA over Virginia Tech, Boise State, California, Northwestern and Washington State. He had 17 offers from FBS schools.

McCarron had a monsterous junior season, posting 21 sacks, 30 tackles for loss and forced three fumbles. He was also his team’s leading receiver, but his future is definitely on the defensive side of the football.

“I think Josh’s quality is that Josh goes 110 percent on every single snap, which gives him the ability to make plays every single time,” said Archbishop Murphy coach Mark Leone to the Everett Herald after McCarron was named the area’s 2019 Defensive Player of the Year.

Everett is located about a half an hour outside Seattle, and Archbishop Murphy has churned out several outstanding football players in the past, including Tani Tupou (D-lineman, University of Washington, Seattle Seahawks), Abe Lucas (offensive tackle, Washington State), Kyler Gordon (cornerback, University of Washington) and Shiloh Keo (safety, University of Idaho, Houston Texans), among others.

“Josh McCarron is a game-changer that offenses must game plan around,” said rival coach Dan Teeter of Lakewood. “He made so many plays (vs. defending state champion Hockinson) that it’s hard not to notice. In my opinion, that’s the game that really put him on the map.”

In that game, which ended a 28-game winning streak for the eventual state semifinalist Hockinson, McCarron had nine tackles, two sacks and four tackles for loss.

McCarron is a team player who shared his achievements with his teammates.

“I don’t think I could have had the year I did without that supporting cast,” he said. “I say supporting cast, but really I was part of the supporting cast for all of those players. That’s just the culture we’ve built here.”

McCarron’s stats for a mere junior were definitely jaw-dropping and makes one wonder what will he do for an encore as a senior.

“It’s honest to God pretty incredible,” McCarron said of his numbers. “It’s not something I look at at the beginning of the season. I’m not playing for stats, but at the end of the season you have that moment to kind of look back and be like, ‘I really did that?’ It’s awesome.”

Part of his physical ability and technique improvement can be traced back to working with one of his high school’s alums, Tupou. McCarron had attended a lineman camp in California and once he returned to Everett, he realized that he needed to up his game in terms of speed-rushing.

He credited Tupou for helping him become a more all-around performer.

McCarron is the sixth member of Bronco Mendenhall’s 2021 recruiting class and definitely the highest-ranked thus far.