With last year’s starter Jacob Eason declaring for the NFL draft, the University of Washington Husky football team will have a new starting quarterback for the upcoming 2020 season. A former Mountlake Terrace Hawk is getting his chance to enter the fray and compete for that starting spot.

Jesse Martineau, a 2018 graduate of Mountlake Terrace High School, has been added to the official Husky football roster after grey-shirting at the UW last year; Martineau will be one of at least four quarterbacks competing for gametime – and the starter’s role – for the Huskies this fall.

“I am very excited for the opportunity that Coach (Jimmy) Lake and the UW staff have given me,” Martineau said.

Martineau, a walk-on to the Husky program, joins scholarship athletes Jacob Sirmon, Dylan Morris and Ethan Garbers on the current UW quarterback depth chart. All are underclassmen (Sirmon is a sophomore, Morris a red-shirt freshman and Garbers a true freshman), but Sirmon is the early favorite to be named the starting quarterback, as the only one to have already taken a snap for the Huskies. (Sirmon played in five games during the 2019 season.)

By grey-shirting for the Huskies in 2019, Martineau was able to participate in spring drills last year without being on the team’s formal roster and without losing a year of college eligibility. 

This year’s UW spring practices are tentatively set to begin June 5. The first game of the 2020 Husky season is Sept. 5 at home against Michigan.

Martineau has been given the No. 13 jersey for the purple and gold, according to the 2020 roster posted on the gohuskies.com website. Martineau wore the No. 10 at Mountlake Terrace.

Martineau was the starter for the Hawks during his sophomore, junior and senior years, only missing a handful games due to injury. He was also a three-sport athlete at Terrace, playing basketball and baseball during his prep years.