Rogers Has Best Day Yet as Husky Quarterback

The Mississippi State transfer showed a good command of the UW offense.

Newcomers Enokk Vimahi (57) and D'Angalo Titialii (75) and Landen Hatchett (66) got through stretching exercises. / Dan Raley

The day began with a smattering of University of Washington football players stretching out their legs and lower backs when quarterback Will Rogers arrived at the East practice field.

Offensive guard Gaard Memmelaar immediately greeted the Mississippi State transfer with a fairly descriptive welcome that consisted of "silver spoon" and a bunch of words that can't be repeated here, suggesting his teammate had been pampered some.

Rogers was barely on the ground to do his pre-practice routine on Tuesday morning when Memmelaar and center Landen Hatchett practically assaulted him, hovering over him and each grabbing a leg and wrenching on it to help his stretching along. If that didn't loosen up the QB's hamstrings nothing will.

"I feel like we're bonding on a new level," Hatchett remarked to no one in particular, but making an accurate assessment instead of a basic wisecrack.

What came next were two and a hour hours of full contact for practice No. 6 and maybe triple the number of scrimmage plays than any previous workout as the Huskies began to look more and more like a polished football team rather than just the host for a football refugee camp.

Rogers, the one-time Mike Leach protege, was at his very best on the East practice field, showing off his quick release and moving things along in a snappy, efficient manner, with a little bit of deception mixed in.

On the first scrimmage play, the 6-foot-2, 216-pound quarterback handed the ball to running back Jonah Coleman, who stopped and flipped the ball back to Rogers, who, in turn, threw it to Giles Jackson, good for a flea-flicker gain of 16 yards.

While Rogers tends to look for Denzel Boston first, on this day he made good use of his other starting wide receivers. Early on, he drilled a 47-yard touchdown pass to Jackson, who caught a well-thrown ball that zipped through a narrow window between safety Peyton Waters and nickelback Jordan Shaw.

On his next series, Rogers left fly with a deep ball intended for Jeremiah Hunter, the California transfer who had a step on safety Makell Esteen and made a fully extended diving catch for a 39-yard gain.

Showing off his improvisational skills, Rogers scrambled to the left near the goal only to jump at the last minute and lob one over a defender to tight end Keleki Latu, the Nevada transfer, for a 4-yard touchdown play. That brought most of the offensive players and Husky quarterbacks coach Jimmie Dougherty rushing to the end zone to catch up to the quarterback and congratulate him.

The QB finished off his big plays for the day with a 25-yard TD pass to Jackson that brought all of the offensive players streaming onto the field once more, this coming after he had tried and failed on another flea flicker that began with Boston getting the ball and giving it up and ended with Rogers overthrowing Coleman.

Will Rogers is flat on his back as offensive linemen Gaard Memmelaar and Landen Hatchett stretch him out. / Dan Raley

While Rogers drew much of the attention, the Huskies weren't short of defensive highlights, namely Shaw intercepting a Demond Willams Jr. pass and returning it 95 yards for a score, with the entire defensive bench plus his teammates coming onto the field and running with Shaw the entire way.

Waters had a productive day with an interception and textbook tackle in which he wrapped up receiver Kevin Green Jr., lifted him up and dropped him. Defensive tackle Sebastian Valdez swatted down a field goal.

With everyone's energy levels raised some by the contact, emotions ran hot, too. In one instance sophomore edge rusher Lance Holtzclaw and freshman wide receiver Audric Harris got into it in a hot-tempered manner and had to be separated.

Everybody was in good spirits when the longer than normal practice ended. For sure, Rogers was good and loose, especially after receiving such hands-on personal care from his doting Husky offensive linemen.

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