Inside The Huskies

Michigan's Mason Graham Is Disruptive Like the Great Emtman

The Southern California product wasn't recruited by the Huskies.

Dan Raley

Michigan Wolverines defensive lineman Mason Graham (55) tackles UW tight end Devin Culp during the national title game.
Michigan Wolverines defensive lineman Mason Graham (55) tackles UW tight end Devin Culp during the national title game. / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Michigan defensive tackle Mason Graham, all wrath and fury, might be college football's most disruptive player.

With smoke billowing out of his nostrils, he could be the second coming of Steve Emtman.

For absolute certain on Saturday afternoon, Graham will be making the rounds at Husky Stadium, marking his territory in the trenches and attempting to unnerve the University of Washington football team for the second time in 10 months.

Or, in the CFP national championship game in January, did you not see this 6-foot-3, 318-pound madman drive former Huskies offensive guard Nate Kalepo 10 yards off the ball and then pancake the veteran?

Graham, with his 4 quarterback hurries, effectively made quarterback Michael Penix Jr. look mortal in the UW's 34-13 loss to the Wolverines in Houston.

With so many players moving on following that title match-up, especially to the NFL, the Huskies have to wonder why this guy wasn't one of them?

What has to be further aggravating to those in Montlake trying to game plan for Graham this week is the fact the previous UW football staff headed up by Jimmy Lake didn't recruit this player when he was in the same time zone at Servite High School in Anaheim, California.

To be fair to Lake -- and remembering that the COVID pandemic was still a detriment to college recruiting at the time -- a lot of Power 5 schools initially passed on Graham back then.

That's why, on July 14, 2021, he committed to Boise State.

Michigan, of course, ultimately would discover this Southern California football terror, get him to de-commit from the Idaho school on Sept. 16, 2021, and lock him down with an oral pledge that same day.

Graham has started 20 of 32 games in his burgeoning Wolverines career and piled up 81 tackles, with 8.5 sacks among them. Last season as a sophomore, he was named first-team All-Big Ten and second-team Associated Press All-America. The Huskies would have voted for him whatever he wanted to be recognized.

In the CFP title game, he came up with 3 tackles against the Huskies, but his continual pressure and disruption up front was more than enough to help limit the normally high-octane Penix and Company to the real pedestrian numbers of 46 yards rushing, 255 yards passing and a lone touchdown put on the board.

The curly-haired Graham, while teaming with fellow junior Kenneth Grant on the D-line, has a little swagger in him when discussing how they play off each other.

"It's like peanut butter and jelly -- we just go together," Graham said of Grant. "When we're both on the inside, they can't focus all their attention on just one of us."

Michigan Wolverines defensive lineman Mason Graham (55) questions a play against the UW.
Michigan Wolverines defensive lineman Mason Graham (55) questions a play against the UW. / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

The Huskies no doubt know this, too. "He's got great lateral movement and he's great with his hands," UW offensive coordinator Brennan Carroll said of Graham. "But they have a whole really good front."

With a jiggling belly, he's hardly an Adonis with a taunt physique -- which is what Emtman looked like when led the UW past Michigan 34-14 in the 1992 Rose Bowl and to a 12-0 season and national championship. Yet Graham is athletic enough that as a freshman in high school he competed in basketball, football, rugby, track and field and wrestling. He used to line up against the more typical track guys and run the 100- and 200-meter dashes, just for fun.

All of this, when looking at both Graham and Grant together, led former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh to describe them as "gifts from the football gods."

So Graham will look to have his way where Emtman once ruled every Saturday, made people nervous simply when he came out for the coin flip and always looked like he was ready to begin swallowing canaries.

In this case, Graham seems quite content digesting peanut butter and jelly while feasting on as many offensive linemen as he can.

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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