ZTF Receives Lofty Ranking from Erstwhile Oklahoma List-Maker
The decision-making surrounding Zion Tupuola-Fetui has never stopped.
Orange hair or yellow?
UW or transfer portal?
Huskies or the NFL?
Two hundred seventy-eight pounds or 241?
One thing that everyone can agree on with this University of Washington defensive presence is he's built a fairly widespread reputation, no matter how long he's been out of the limelight, for what he can do on the football field.
This much was made abundantly clear once more when Big Game Boomer — a prolific college football list-maker with a huge following from, where else, Oklahoma — ranked ZTF as the fourth-best outside linebacker in America.
In Boomer's estimation, the Huskies' junior from Pearl City, Hawaii, trails only Alabama's Will Anderson, Georgia's Nolan Smith and Arkansas' yes-his-name-is-really Bumper Pool in coming off the edge and raising havoc.
However, this Sooners fanatic doesn't quite know what Edefuan Ulofoshio is all about. He put him 10th on the list. Ulofoshio is an inside linebacker. But hey, fast Eddie might be pretty good coming off the edge when he's healthy.
Tupuola-Fetui's notoriety again stems largely from a three-game sample size he turned in during the pandemic-shortened season of 2020.
Prior to that, he had played in relative obscurity for two seasons, making brief but regular appearances in 14 games and logging 10 tackles, though none for lost yardage in that time.
"Nobody had heard of ZTF," former UW coach Jimmy Lake pointed out.
Once the Pac-12 pulled the wraps off a delayed and compact 2020 schedule, ZTF proved impossible to block over the first three games, collecting 7 sacks, including 3 strip sacks, against Oregon State, Arizona and Utah.
Stanford was able to shut him down, but by then he had done more than enough to be named first-team All-Pac-12 and third-team Associated Press All-America.
He was the best thing that happened during the ill-fated Lake era.
A star was born.
At least for six months.
ZTF following spring surgery a year ago.
Dan Raley
A year ago in spring practice, ZTF ruptured an Achilles tendon and had to battle back to appear in five games after missing the first five. He registered a lone sack before suffering.a concussion and sitting out the final two outings.
Through all of this, Tupuola-Fetui appears ready to play at a high level again, though he continues to try different playing weights, seeking the fastest him.
From a high of 278 pounds in 2020 to a low of 241 this past April, ZTF is aiming for something in between.
He's seeking whatever will help him get to peak condition in order to terrorize quarterbacks with as much frequency, if not more, over a full season. His NFL future is depending on it.
Ranking fourth in the country at his position is a good place to start as he prepares for an upcoming season that will be crucial to his draft ambitions. At least they already know him in Oklahoma.
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