Rutgers Collateral Damage was Jayvon Parker Injury

The defensive tackle joins his twin bother on the sideline.

Injured Jayvon Parker is helped to the locker room at Rutgers. / Dan Raley

The outcome of the UW-Rutgers football game was painful enough, but the challenge for injured University of Washington defensive tackle Jayvon Parker to reach the locker room once the game ended seemed like piling on.

Parker, who injured a knee or a foot and left the game early in the fourth quarter of the 21-18 loss, was using crutches, barefoot with his wounded hinge and trying to navigate a steep, uphill climb through a red-colored hallway when he couldn't go any farther.

Teammate Elinneus Davis and a staff member moved in to lift up this 6-foot-3, 297-pound man, no easy chore, and carry him the rest of the way while yet another support person collected his crutches.

The postgame scene seemed to sum up the plight of the Huskies, who appeared to have more talent than Rutgers during this Big Ten road game, but limped home with their second close loss in their past three games.

For Parker, a junior from Detroit, it was another blow to the college football hopes for him and his twin brother Amon, who almost seemed to be cursed when it comes to settling in and enjoying long productive careers in Montlake.

Jedd Fisch's staff took one look at this thick and powerful Jayvon Parker during spring football and stamped him as a potential starter, only to have him go down with an unspecified injury -- though he notably wears a thick black brace on his left knee, which might be an indicator -- that didn't require surgery, but still took him the entire offseason to overcome.

Parker recently was playing well and seemed to be poised for his first Husky start at any time. All of that individual momentum disappeared when he went down in pain after tackling Rutgers running back Samuel Brown V following a 3-yard gain to the UW 37 in the fourth quarter and couldn't put any weight on his right leg as he left the field with assistance.

Now he joins his brother Armon on the sideline. The other Parker, who at 6-foot-3 and 312 pounds, is bigger than his brother. The previous coaching staff described this sibling as possibly quicker than Jayvon and an intriguing player.

However, Armon Parker has never really got started, never been in the mix for playing time. He tore up a knee in pick-up basketball at home and had surgery before reporting as a UW freshman and sitting out, and then suffered another season-ending knee injury during this past spring football. He's done more rehabbing and watching than anything else.

Now Jayvon Parker will find out his football fate for the rest of this season, though it seems unlikely he'll play against his home state Michigan Wolverines next Saturday, with Fisch providing an update on the defensive tackle at his Monday media briefing.

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