Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer told reporters after Saturday’s scrimmage that all-conference left tackle Jaxson Kirkland will be forced to miss the first game of UW’s 2022 season as a condition of his reinstatement by the NCAA.

“With Jaxson Kirkland’s reinstatement, the NCAA did come back to us and they are going to keep him out,” DeBoer said. “I don’t want to use the word suspension because he didn’t do anything wrong, but they are going to keep him out of the first game. He’ll be ready for week two to play. And we just talked about it now as a team. We did an appeal, we went through the process and that took some more time on top of the first answer we got from them. We wanted to make that announcement here and make sure everyone was in the know so we didn’t have any distractions down the road.”

The 6-foot-7, 340-pound tackle initially declared for the 2022 NFL draft and hired an agent, but later learned that he would need ankle surgery, a procedure that would significantly impact his draft status and ultimately led to him withdrawing from the draft.

Kirkland petitioned the NCAA to reinstate him for a sixth season of eligibility, which the NCAA did, but apparently under the condition he sit out the season-opener against Kent State on Sept. 3.

The preseason All-Pac-12 tackle sat out spring ball earlier this year while rehabbing that same ankle and waiting for a decision from the NCAA on his reinstatement.

“There are two ways to look at it. Jaxson’s been so positive throughout this whole process that he’s just happy he gets a chance to go back and play. Glass half-full or empty, he’s choosing to be in the mindset of having the glass half-full,” DeBoer said. “He’s excited that he gets this season to be able to end his U-Dub career the right way.”

It’s a curious decision from the NCAA, which recently sought to completely eliminate rules requiring transfer players to sit out after their first transfer. Kirkland intended to leave, and injury forced him back, and after playing the appeals game, is slapped with a one-game… suspension?… punishment?

In five seasons with the Huskies, Kirkland has started 39 games at multiple spots while earning All-Pac 12 first-team selections and second-team selections twice each. Kirkland figures to anchor the offensive line for DeBoer in his first season with the program.