Inside The Huskies

Huskies Nearly Pitch Shutout on All-Big Ten Football Team

Ohio State, Michigan and Oregon dominate this preseason listing.

Dan Raley

Huskies linebacker Carson Bruener (42) tackles Stanford quarterback Tanner McKee (18) in their 2022 game.
Huskies linebacker Carson Bruener (42) tackles Stanford quarterback Tanner McKee (18) in their 2022 game. / Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports

No one said getting accepted by Big Ten football was going to be easy. Just being mentioned in the same breath with the longstanding Midwest elite, let alone facing them on game day, will be a significant challenge for the University of Washington.

On Monday, USA TODAY released its All-Big Ten preseason team of 25 players named as first-unit selections on offense, defense and special teams, plus another 38 who were singled out for simply receiving votes.

The Huskies had a solitary guy mentioned in the also-ran category -- and his name was misspelled: Carson Bruen(n)er.

At least that that was one more player than UCLA had appear on this list by America's national news organization, which was zilch.

USC did a little better, putting three players on USA TODAY's All-Big Ten team, with Zachariah Branch chosen as the first-team, all-purpose player and offensive lineman Jonah Monheim and defensive lineman Bear Alexander named as vote-getters.

Now Oregon was a totally different story -- the Ducks placed quarterback Dillon Gabriel, wide receiver Tez Johnson and linebacker Jeffrey Bass as first-teamers, and had five more players receive votes, including former Husky cornerback Jabbar Muhammad and Seattle-produced offensive lineman Josh Conerly Jr.

Gabriel, the Oklahoma transfer, was selected Big Ten Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year, making a breakthrough on behalf of the West Coast teams entering the conference.

While the Ducks certainly have proven talent for this coming football season, it didn't hurt their cause any that the hometown Eugene Register-Guard newspaper supplied the only voter input west of Iowa among the 14 media outlets that participated.

Naturally, of the first-teamers singled out, traditional powerhouse Ohio State supplied seven players and defending national champion Michigan provided four, the most of any schools. Two of the Buckeyes were wide receiver Emeka Egbuka, who hails from Steilacoom, Washington, and edge rusher J.T. Tuimoloau from Edgewood, Washington.

Bruener, a senior from Woodinville, Washington, remains one of the more visible Huskies for the coming season, showing up on lists here and there. This is noteworthy because he was largely a reserve player for the UW's national championship runner-up team.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley

DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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