Titialii Makes His Husky Dreams Come True

The Portland State transfer has started all 10 UW games this season.

Center D'Angalo Titialii has realized a personal dream by getting a chance to play for the Huskies. / Skylar Lin Visuals

In the middle of University of Washington spring football, the short but thickly built visitor looked a little wound tight as he paced the sideline of the East practice field by himself, intently watching everything unfold.

Those of us who monitored the daily proceedings would learn this was D'Angalo Titialii, a Portland State center in the transfer portal for a very short amount of time, contacted a day after submitting his name by UW offensive coordinator and line coach Brennan Carroll, and who was offered a scholarship the night of his visit and immediately accepted it.

North Carolina State had offered him first, but this 6-foot-2, 320-pound offensive lineman grew up in nearby Auburn, Washington, and he always wanted to be a Husky -- even though no one from the UW recruited him coming out of high school -- and now he was wearing purple and gold.

"I've been a lifelong fan of the U-Dub Huskies football team," Titialii said on Tuesday, meeting with the local media for the first time. "Born and raised out here."

The attraction to him was his experience -- Titialii played 32 games in the Big Sky Conference and started 28 -- and he had a reputation for being aggressive. His interest in playing for the home school was over the top, too.

"One of the things that was really impressive was he was dying to be here," Carroll said. "He was a kid who got overlooked."

While the Huskies are a 5-5 team through 10 games, Titialii has started every outing this season, even after sophomore Landen Hatchett, deemed the center of the future, recovered from knee surgery and was ready to play again. However, Hatchett has been used almost exclusively at offensive guard and become a starter next to him.

Before showing up for fall camp, Tititalii made sure to increase his workouts so he could handle just about anything and make a good first impression.

"I wanted to come in here and just not seem like the transfer trash," he said. "I wanted to show them I could really play and what I could do."

UW center D'Angalo Titialii snaps the ball to Will Rogers in the opener against Weber State. / Skylar Lin Visuals

While the Husky offensive line as a unit has suffered at times, Titialii seemed to append himself well against Michigan. He was seen standing up and bending backward Wolverines' All-America defensive tackle Mason Graham to open a hole for Jonah Coleman to score in the 27-17 victory.

Yet Titialii's favorite play against the Wolverines was the UW's double quarterback pass, with the ball going from Will Rogers to Demond Williams Jr. and coming back across the field to a waiting running back Cam Davis, who picked up 37 yards with the center and all of the other linemen escorting him up the sideline.

Entering Friday night's game against UCLA, Titialii is no less motivated to make things happen up front for the Huskies and finish strong in his lone season in the Big Ten Conference. He'd like a shot at the NFL.

"I just come out and make sure I do whatever it takes to get to the league," he said, "because there's a lot of odds against me with being undersized and everything."

Titialii, of course, has heard all of that before.

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