With Everything on the Line, UW Offensive Line Had Futuristic Look
The Sun Bowl was meant to be a valuable Texas training ground all along for Demond Williams Jr., the University of Washington freshman quarterback and heir to the throne, as the Huskies try to move past the rebuilding stage.
Yet if anyone was watching closely at the end of Tuesday's postseason battle against Louisville, the keen observer would have noticed that Williams wasn't the only one in El Paso earning his spurs in a pressure-cooker situation.
With the Huskies mounting a mad-scramble comeback in the fourth quarter from two touchdowns behind, they had sophomore Landen Hatchett finish off this game as the No. 1 center, manning his designated position for 2025, after he had started and played much of the bowl game at right guard.
The 6-foot-2, 310-pound Hatchett was not alone in doing something with implications for next season when everything was on the line in El Paso.
Next to him at left guard with the clock ticking down was freshman Paki Finau. Under steady development, he hadn't played since the third game of the season against Washington State in the Apple Cup.
The Huskies first sent the 6-foot-5, 300-pound Finau into battle in the second quarter against the Cardinals. Yet here he was at the end of the Sun Bowl, entrusted with providing protection for Williams as the Huskies launched a fierce rally only to lose 35-34 when a two-point conversion pass was knocked away after they chose not to kick.
Over the latter half of the season, Jedd Fisch's staff made a number of delicate personnel moves here and there with an eye toward the future while trying to win in the moment. With assembled manpower that didn't allow the UW to be anything more than a 6-7 team in 2024, the youth movement had to begin at some point during the season, and it did.
Defensively in El Paso, the Huskies installed redshirt freshman cornerback Leroy Bryant as a first-time starter against Louisville, supplanting senior Thaddeus Dixon, though the latter still drew a majority of the snaps. It's unclear exactly why that move was made, but it still had future ramifications.
"We played a lot of young players," Fisch said in the postgame interview session. "That's our goal -- is to see how good we can be."
Often those decisions to go younger came at the expense of a senior player and his playing time, and all of this had to be handled with a high degree of grace and diplomacy.
For instance, Hatchett was installed as a starter for the final six games, replacing Ohio State transfer Enokk Vimahi, who ended up starting the bowl game at left guard. When Williams was promoted to offensive field general, that brought Mississippi State transfer Will Rogers' active playing career to a sudden end with two Husky outings remaining. When Hatchett moved over to center, Portland State transfer D'Angalo Titialii was left to watch the rest of the game from the sideline.
Between now and next season, the Huskies will continue to elevate and shuffle players as they try to become much more competitive than the mid-level Big Ten team they were. Yet El Paso was a pivotal place.
For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington