Inside The Huskies

Huskies Venture Into Jersey With Defense That Keeps Changing Its Look

Rutgers is left to guess who the UW starters will be on this stop unit.

Dan Raley

UW defensive tackle Jayvon Parker celebrates an Apple Cup moment.
UW defensive tackle Jayvon Parker celebrates an Apple Cup moment. / Skylar Lin Visuals

PISCATAWAY, New Jersey -- As the University of Washington football team drives down the freeway and pulls up to Rutgers for Friday night's nationally televised game, one can almost hear the Sopranos theme song blaring in the background as the team busses navigate this gritty part of Americana.

"You woke up this morning, got yourself a gun. Mama always said you'd be the chosen one ..."

Well, in this land in which almost no one knows where all of the bodies are buried -- Jimmy Hoffa, are you out there? -- the Huskies arrive in Jersey natives Jedd Fisch and Steve Belichick's oldhaunts with a 3-1 team that barely resembles the crew that advanced to the CFP national championship game just nine months ago.

Side note: that's Belichick, another brand name around here much like Soprano, that relies on family, loyalty and maybe a little muscle to make things happen.

In doing reconnaissance on this UW football reorg, Rutgers and other Big Ten opponents have had to figure out who the live bodies are. They all probably figured the Huskies would be shuffling personnel nonstop each week, especially across the offensive line, in order to get things right.

However, the Husky defense has been the focal area for manpower chess moves, with 17 different players pulling starting assignments in the 11 spots so far, with the possibility of two more changes coming for this game.

An unbeaten Rutgers team (3-0) is up next up for the UW, which totally shut down Northwestern the previous weekend at Husky Stadium and held those guys to a measly 112 yards of total offense, just 12 first downs and a miserable 8-for-27 passing for 53 of those yards.

"We swarmed the ball," Fisch said of his defensive guys. "We disrupted the passer. We had a bunch of TFLs [tackles for loss], a couple of sacks and couple of interceptions. I just thought our defense played exceptionally well."

That said, defensive tackle Jayvon Parker could find himself in the starting lineup. He was projected as a No. 1 DT in spring practice but was injured, rehabbed his way back and has rotated in this season. That night change in Soprano land. The 6-foot-3, 297-pound junior from Detroit stands to be rewarded soon for his disruptive play up front.

"I think he's got a good combination of strength and quickness and size," Belichick said. "And I think it's, yeah, a good product."

Also, junior cornerback Elijah Jackson, a 15-game starter in 2023 but beaten out by Thaddeus Dixon this season, impressed everyone who saw him run three-quarters of the Husky Stadium football field to prevent Northwestern's Joseph Himon from scoring and limiting him to a 96-yard kickoff return with an incredible show of hustle..

"That was a phenomenal play and he's going to be rewarded for that," Fisch said.

If that means Jackson reclaims his old starting job, plus Parker moves up, the Huskies will have swapped out 8 of their 11 defensive spots just five weeks into the season. That's almost two full defenses available.

HUSKY DEFENSIVE STARTS

ER -- Zach Durfee (2)

Khmori House (1), Deshawn Lynch (1)

DL -- Sebastian Valdez (4)

DL -- Jacob Bandes (3)

Logan Sagapolu (1)

ER -- Isaiah Ward (2)

Voi Tunuufi (2)

LB -- Alphonzo Tuputala (4)

LB -- Carson Bruener (3)

Bryun Parham (1)

CB -- Ephesians Prysock (4)

CB -- Thaddeus Dixon (4)

SS -- Kam Fabiculanan (4)

FS -- Makell Esteen (2)

Cam Broussard (2)

NB -- Jordan Shaw (4)

The Huskies started the same 11 on defense for the first two games, then tinkered with the lineup for Washington State in the Apple Cup by using three new first-teamers. Altogether, this Belichick-driven unit has given up just three touchdowns, all to the Cougars in one weekend in a 24-19 loss, and held their other opponents to 3, 9 and 5 points.

The coaching staff held back edge rushers Zach Durfee and Isaiah Ward for a series against WSU and went with an old-school 3-3-5 scheme with defensive lineman Voi Tunuufi starting for the first time since 2021 in a hybrid end spot, Khmori House becoming the first freshman to start this season as an extra linebacker and Sacramento State transfer Cam Broussard opening at No. 1 free safety.

A week later against Northwestern, the UW opened with 6-foot-2, 368-pound Miami transfer Logan Sagapolu in a three-man defensive front and swapped Bryun Parham at linebacker for Carson Bruener, with the latter coming off an injury but still playing a significant amount.

Besides Parker and Jackson on the cusp of claiming starting roles, the Huskies have sophomore edge rushers in Jacob Lane and Lance Holtzclaw who are seasoned enough to open games; linebacker Drew Fowler, back from a foot injury for this game and having made 41 career appearances, and always available to become a first-time starter; and Oklahoma transfer Justin Harrington who's in the mix at safety if needed.

Oklahoma transfer Justin Harrington makes a special-teams tackle for the Huskies.
Oklahoma transfer Justin Harrington makes a special-teams tackle for the Huskies. / Skylar Lin Visuals

Harrington, a seventh-year college player, started the first two games of the season for the Sooners in 2023 before suffering a season-ending knee injury. Fisch's staff welcomed him from the transfer portal and rehab to use him on special teams, but not on defense yet. That could always change. No one is saying this, Harrington with his Oklahoma injury and long college football servitude might not be the player he once was.

"He's worked his way into the rotation with a little bit of linebacker dime positions for us and a third safety position," Fisch said. "He's done well."

So in the shadows of New York City, where people like to wink and nod about what really goes on here, and HBO made the underworld almost seem commonplace if not glamorous in these rought and tumble neighborhoods, the Huskies will see if they can get out of here alive. They'll need all hands on deck for their defense to play well in order to survive.

"It's nice to see the amount of guys making impacts." Fisch said. "We continue to go through the process of finding different players for different areas to do different things. We're going to continue to play some young guys, some older guys and see what it all looks like."

These UW players have come to a place, as the theme song suggests, where mama said they'd be the chosen ones. Time to show it and be made guys.

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

Published |Modified
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.

Home/Football