3 New Year's Resolutions for UW Football in 2021
By now, it's clear Jimmy Lake will have a lot to work with when University of Washington football reconvenes.
Twenty of 22 starters return from the last game against Stanford.
The Husky coach will welcome back six, seven or eight other guys who started at some point last season, depending on what running back Kamari Pleasant or defensive tackle Josiah Bronson do with the stimulus seasons now being offered them by the NCAA.
Quarterback — check.
Lockdown corner — check.
O-line intact — check.
All-American tight end — check.
Scary edge rusher — check.
Tackling-machine inside linebacker — check.
While it's clear that the Husky run defense was subpar over the movie trailer of a season everyone was treated to, an argument can be made that this was an anomaly.
Tuli Letuligasenoa, the anchor guy in the middle, played one full game on the D-line, plus two stray plays in another. Got injured and never got into game shape.
Laiatu Latu, a projected starter coming off the edge, never got on the field. Injured as well.
Ryan Bowman, a 2019 second-team All-Pac-12 player, missed two of the four games presumably with illness.
That's three of the four designated starters right there, unavailable, not counting Levi Onwuzurike and Joe Tryon, who opted out.
No, that position area should work itself out on its own with a healthy and hungry Letuligasenoa leading the way.
It wouldn't hurt to have him binge-watch Steve Emtman or Ron Holmes highlight reels like some Netflix hit series over the next nine months.
Here are three more pressing upgrades necessary for 2021 to be a special season, especially by the time Lake takes his Huskies to Ann Arbor to face Michigan in the second game:
A Physical Safety
The Huskies didn't have a runaway train coming up from the back row to disrupt things during the four-game pandemic sample.
Zion Tupuola-Fetui frightened people coming off the edge and Edefuan Ulofoshio played like an irritating swarm of bees on the second row.
Safety?
Asa Turner started all four games on the strong side and Alex Cook opened three times at free safety. They seemed to be in the right places most of the time. Turner even came up with an interception.
Yet neither guy set the tone with an open-field collision to be shown over and over again in the offseason.
They were far too polite.
Go to YouTube and watch the next-to-last time the Huskies visited Ann Arbor, featuring Jimmy Rodgers in 1984. Clean hits. Late hits. Hits, hits, hits.
Jim Harbaugh, then the Michigan quarterback and now the Wolverines coach, still has the welts left by Rodgers.
It was safety 101.
Turner and Cook have nine months to get their minds right and everyone else's scrambled.
A No. 1 Receiver
This position area seemed to make some strides over the previous seasons, where the Husky wideouts were indistinguishable at times and failed to get open against the better secondaries.
Yet Puka Nacua and Terrell Bynum missed the Stanford game, presumably because of illness, and Nacua was occasionally inflicted with a case of the drops.
The UW returns five guys who started games. Intriguing specimens. Big guys who can run.
The Huskies need someone to separate himself from the others like Mario Bailey, John Ross and Reggie Williams did in prior decades.
Put some attitude with those hands and legs and ring up a ton of receptions.
Take the bold approach offered by James Odunze, father of Rome. He recently tweeted out to Husky Maven that his son was the best receiver on the West Coast.
Fair enough. Let's see it in 2021.
Richard Newton
OK, the Huskies' running-back-by-committee approach was unique, overly fair to the top four running backs involved and it kept them fresh.
Yet whatever Newton did to fall out of disfavor with the Lake coaching staff, making him a spectator in uniform for two games, needs to be rectified.
Now this isn't new putting a big-time runner on the shelf. Legendary coach Don James wouldn't let Rose Bowl MVP Jacque Robinson play when the tailback's weight got out of control. James also sat down guys who fumbled no matter how many yards they churned out.
Newton is a better runner than anyone on the depth chart, both inside the tackles and in the open field, as his 54-yard scoring burst against Arizona demonstrated and his 11 TDs as a redshirt freshman reserve hinted at.
He needs to get his mind right or his blocking skills upgraded, or whatever it takes to get back in good graces.
That's too much talent standing next to Lake.
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