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Better than Tryon-Shoyinka? Trice Enters Draft, Will Get a Chance to Prove It

The Husky edge rushers have been compared against each other for three years now.
Dan Raley|
Better than Tryon-Shoyinka? Trice Enters Draft, Will Get a Chance to Prove It
Better than Tryon-Shoyinka? Trice Enters Draft, Will Get a Chance to Prove It

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Washington Huskies

Bralen Trice will be a better player than Joe Tryon-Shoyinka. The statement was bold, unsolicited and matter of fact. 

Ikaika Malloe, former University of Washington edge-rusher coach and now UCLA's defensive coordinator, made this claim in 2021.

It was no slam on Tryon-Shoyinka, just the ultimate compliment for Trice, an edge rusher who hadn't played a down for the Huskies to that point but had so much potential it was hard not to envision what he could do.

Well, the next comparison between these highly accomplished UW defensive playmakers is coming up in three months.

On Wednesday, the 6-foot-4, 274-pound Trice from Phoenix, Arizona, announced he was passing up his final year of eligibility and pursuing an NFL career, putting things in motion for football at the next level.

The magic number for him to initially shoot for is 32 — that's where the Tampa Bay Buccaneers took Tryon-Shoyinka, as the last player selected in the first round of the 2021 NFL draft.

A lot of people think Trice, now that he's officially in the mix for agents, combines and mock drafts, will go a lot higher than that.

Better than Tryon-Shoyinka? 

This will be Trice's opportunity to make Malloe's boast look spot on on the next level. He likely could have turned pro last year and been drafted in a middle round, and he even sought out an NFL grade to guide him, but he was no hurry to leave the Huskies. 

"For me, I really knew I was coming back, and just because I really wanted to win a championship with the guys I had on the team, and I needed to graduate," Trice said last weekend in Houston, before the CFP championship game against Michigan. "So there was that. I promised my mom I would graduate. So this time last year, you know, it didn't really ... I wasn't really thinking about going pro at all. I had my mindset."

That mindset made him a two-time, first-team All-Pac-12 selection and a third-team Associated Press All-America choice. He would play in 40 Husky games and start 29 of them. He finished with 101 tackles, including 28.5 tackles for loss and 18 sacks.

Certainly that Husky output was better than Tryon-Shoyinka, who was a second-team All-Pac-12 choice in 2019 before becoming a three-year pro in Tampa Bay. Playing just two seasons for the UW, Tryon-Shoyinka finished with 61 tackles, including 14.5 TFLs and 9 sacks.

Trice redshirted in 2019 when Tryon was his UW teammate and a full-time edge-rusher starter for the first time than opted out of the following season as a redshirt freshman because of COVID, as did Tryon-Shoyinka, who was a rising senior and sat out a year working out  as he awaited the 2021 draft.

Texas is probably glad to hear that Trice has declared for the NFL Draft, just in case the Longhorns somehow get paired up with the Huskies in a bowl game for the third consecutive year.

Trice was named defensive most valuable player against Texas in the 2022 Alamo Bowl, and again in the recently played Sugar Bowl against the Longhorns. They could not deal with him.

Similar to Tryon-Shoyinka, Trice had to grow into his body and gradually realize his vast football potential once he got the hang of the Husky football program. 

"It's an amazing feeling," Trice said. "As a little kid, I didn't play football; I didn't start until 7th grade, late 6th grade. As a little kid, I didn't think about it much, but high school obviously there was something I saw and dreamed about, and had aspirations to get there. And finally being here is a great feeling."

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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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