With the 2026 NFL draft underway, former Washington Huskies edge Zach Durfee has made several pre-draft visits, including to the Kansas City Chiefs and Las Vegas Raiders, adding a pair of organizations to the growing number of interested potential future employers for the Huskies' draft prospect.
Durfee, a 6-foot-5, 258-pound edge rusher, has been traveling the country to visit with several teams over the past two months, most recently embarking on visits to the Cincinnati Bengals, marking the fourth confirmed trip he has taken leading into the annual three-day draft.
The Dawson, Minnesota native made the same cross-country trek from Nevada to Ohio during the same span that fellow 2026 draft hopeful Kaelon Black—a former James Madison and Indiana running back who had a whirlwind of a 24-hour trip, according to NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero—that Durfee also made, a symbolic path to a future career in the league that echoes his path to Seattle.
A former standout basketball player at Dawson-Boyd High School who averaged 21 points and 10 rebounds as a senior, Durfee began his college career as just an average student at North Dakota State in the fall of 2020 before relocating to Sioux Falls, a small NCAA Division II college in South Dakota, and walking on the Cougars' football team in 2021 as a redshirt before he broke out with 11.5 sacks the following year.
Zach Durfee is a DE prospect in the 2026 draft class. He scored a 9.78 RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 51 out of 2239 DE from 1987 to 2026.https://t.co/NpXZreGVlI pic.twitter.com/jn6RRzeZl9
On the board with an NSIC South Division all-conference first team selection in 2022, the Minnesota native put his name in the transfer portal and came out at UW, reuniting two former Sioux Falls legends—then-UW coach Kalen DeBoer and Durfee—and eventually providing current Huskies coach Jedd Fisch with one of his two starting edge rushers for the 2024 season.
In between the DeBoer and Fisch era was more waiting for Durfee, who was ruled ineligible by the NCAA as a two-time transfer in the fall of 2023. Due to his initial college stint at NDSU as a general student, the governing body of college athletics denied an initial waiver and subsequent appeal in 2023 for the edge rusher to be able to suit up for the Huskies while the team made a push towards a national championship appearance vs. Michigan, a 34-13 defeat for UW.
After a judge's early December 2023 ruling, Durfee was able to make his first appearance for the Huskies against the Texas Longhorns in the Sugar Bowl—UW won 37-31 in New Orleans—which paved the way for Durfee's first of three seasons in purple and gold.
His first season under Fisch in '24 saw the former Division-II walk-on make three starts and play in just six games for UW while battling through turf toe in both feet, another potential chance for his NFL dream to derail before it could ever start.
He came back in 2025 as a senior and started 10 of 12 games for the Huskies. Durfee finished tied with junior edge Jacob Lane to lead the team with four sacks while also being one of four UW defenders to record a forced fumble. As detailed in ESPN's annual profile of an unnamed draft prospect, which is widely presumed to be Durfee, when healthy—either at Sioux Falls or UW—he's been able to produce, and in the lead up to the draft, the Minnesota native has caught the eye of numbers teams in the league.
Whether Durfee ends up hearing his name called over the next three days remains to be seen. He should, but if he does or doesn't, his play will earn him a roster spot as a rookie—provided he can shed the injury bug that plagued the early part of his UW career.
This article originally appeared on Huskies Wire: Washington Huskies pass rusher's stock rising heading into NFL Draft