5 Position Battles That Will Define Husky Spring Practice
University of Washington football players will rub their eyes, yawn or cough a few times and begin stretching exercises at precisely 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, officially throwing themselves into spring practice for the first time in two years.
The Husky crew might be just getting in from a two-hour workout.
Will Jimmy Lake's guys wish they could have slept in? Or were on a beach somewhere, putting on sun screen?
Nah.
This is a top 20 team, say all of the college football prognosticators. This is an experienced, talent-laden group of returning starters, interesting portal pick-ups and a 5-star quarterback trying to put it together in 14 workouts plus the spring game.
Every reason to get up early and make it mesh.
Think about it, a 5-star QB in Sam Huard?
No offense to Damon Huard or Brock Huard, but those kind of guys do not grow on trees. Evergreen, magnolia, oak, birch.
Five stars is like three icons on a slot machine.
Over and over.
For all the fans ripping the incoming 15-player UW recruiting class as soft on precious stars and website blather in general, a QB of 5-star magnitude and reputation is enough to stamp grade on it all by himself.
Which brings us to the first practice, which us media types will be able to witness in person once we sign and hand in our pandemic permission slips.
Contemplating this return to college football normalcy — i.e., leaving our man caves and zoom calls behind for now — here are five competitive battles I'm very eager to see:
1) Who will emerge as the starting edge rushers?
No position area on the team will be more hard fought than this one. This is where the most NFL-bound players can be found on this team. These two starting jobs run at least three deep in legitimate first-team candidates on each side.
Zion Tupuola-Fetui and Ryan Bowman presumably are the starters going in. ZTF was named first-team All-Pac-12 and third-team AP All-American and led the nation in sacks for a lengthy period; Bowman was a second-team All-Pac-12 selection in 2019 and could be a starter for parts of five UW seasons.
Don't think Laiatu Latu and Sav'ell Smalls can't beat them out. Latu was the only true freshman lineman on either side of the ball who played in 2019. He was penciled in as the starter, ahead of ZTF, until he missed the short season with injuries. Smalls is one of those jackpot guys — five bars, uh, make that stars — the best player in his Husky class. He earned a start as a true freshman. He's going to be awfully tough to keep off the field.
Add to this mix Jeremiah Martin, the capable senior transfer from Texas A&M, and Cooper McDonald, a Texas native who played in three of four games as a true freshman. Let the head-banging begin.
Wild guess: How about Door No. 2?
2) Four guys are strong wide-receiver starting candidates for three positions. All have had a taste of starting somewhere. Who's the odd man out?
In the running are senior Terrell Bynum, who has 12 starts spread over three seasons; Texas Tech transfer Ja'Lynn Polk, who started seven of 10 games as a true freshman last fall; and redshirt freshmen Rome Odunze and Jalen McMillan, who each drew a starting assignment in their maiden seasons.
So who's the odd man out? The old guy? The new guy?
Bold prediction, it won't be Odunze.
3) What to do about the starting safeties?
Asa Turner and Alex Cook opened at strong and free safety last year, but Turner was panned for not hitting anybody and Cook got replaced near the end of the season by departed and multi-dimensional Elijah Molden.
Turner has been in a two-year battle with fellow junior Cam Williams to be the first-teamer. Cook, a senior, might have to fend off someone such as redshirt freshman Jacobe Covington or junior Julius Irvin.
Turner and Cook?
Strictly a hunch: One wins his job back, the other doesn't.
4) Will Richard Newton, he of the two-game disappearing act last fall, emerge as the No. 1 tailback this spring?
Short and sweet reply: Yes.
He's supposedly has rededicated to making himself great. He got saddle sores from sitting out two entire games.
Momentarily blip for a young kid who might have been thinking he was great before he officially got there.
5) You don't sign 5-star quarterbacks to sit them? What happens to Huard? How far does he get?
First off, it's competition.
Dylan Morris worked so hard to earn the starting job, sending the three other QBs from the past position battle on their way out of the program, he's not going to wilt in front of another guy.
However, Morris faces off with a 5-star this time, which like with generals, is several notches higher than everyone else.
Watch this become a two-player job share, sort of like Mark Brunell and Billy Joe Hobert, or Steve Pelluer and Tim Cowan, with Morris starting and Huard drawing second-quarter shifts next fall to try and keep everyone happy, and Huard taking over if Morris shows himself to be the least bit off his game.
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