Inside The Huskies

Pac-12 Media Day Will Bring Huskies and Ex-UW Players Together

Considering that reunion, we consider what might have happened had they stayed together.

Dan Raley

In this story:

The Pac-12 will present 24 players, two from each school, on its football media day next week in Las Vegas. 

Among them are a pair of University of Washington football players in Michael Penix Jr. and linebacker Edefuan Ulofoshio — and a pair of former Huskies in edge rusher Laiatu Latu now at UCLA and linebacker Jackson Sirmon with California. 

That a lot of Husky-related talent in one room.

A fun, or aggravating, question is this: if these players were still all together in Montlake how would the lineup shake out?

Would Latu and Sirmon be automatic starters?

When Latu was healthy, he was way ahead of fellow UW edge rushers Bralen Trice and Zion Tupuola-Fetui when  they were 2019 teammates.

Latu played as a true freshman, rotating in immediately in 12 of 13 games, while ZTF was a redshirt freshman who likewise appeared in all games except one but with fewer snaps, while Trice redshirted.

The following season, Latu suffered his career-ending next injury at the UW before the season started while ZTF became an All-Pac-12 player in a shortened and pandemic-interrupted campaign with 7 sacks, and Trice opted out of the season and stayed home in Arizona. 

Alphonzo Tuputala, Laiatu Latu and Zion Tupuola-Fetui watch fall practice.
The injured Alphonzo Tuputala, Laiatu Latu and Zion Tupuola-Fetui watch UW spring practice in 2021.  / Dan Raley

Would Trice and Latu be the starters? Or ZTF and Latu? or Trice and ZTF?

We'll never know.

At linebacker, Sirmon was the full-time UW starter in 2020 and 2021, playing most of the time alongside Ulofoshio before he got hurt. Would Sirmon have been able to hold off the veteran Alphonzo Tuputala this season and still be second-row teammates with the fully recovered Edefuan?

Dare to dream.

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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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