Inside The Huskies

Anthony Ward Threw Block Party, But Nobody Else Showed Up

The UW special-teams leader swatted down a Wisconsin punt, but it didn't bring a victory.
Dan Raley|
Washington's Anthony Ward (57) blocks Sean West's Wisconsin punt.
Washington's Anthony Ward (57) blocks Sean West's Wisconsin punt. | Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Anthony Ward at least understood there was opportunity to be had to make a big play at Wisconsin and he acted on it.

As it turned out, he was one of the few on the University of Washington football team who came up with a dynamic result.

In this past Saturday's game in Madison, Ward stood upright to the far right of Badgers punter Sean West on fourth down near the end of the second quarter. Once the ball was snapped, he raced through unblocked when a Wisconsin player had to choose whether to hit him or Hayden Moore, and picked Moore.

Ward took about a half-dozen steps without interruption and smothered the ball without having to leave his feet and extend himself.

In the scramble to retrieve the loose football, the Huskies' 6-foot, 220-pound senior and special-teams leader ended up on top of West, who ended up on top of the ball on the Wisconsin 1. All of this set up a gimme Husky touchdown right before halftime which was good for a 10-3 advantage.

The Huskies' Anthony Ward (57) blocks Sean West's punt for Wisconsin.
The Huskies' Anthony Ward (57) blocks Sean West's punt for Wisconsin. | Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

There should have been about five of these explosive-type plays against a long-suffering Wisconsn team, especially on defense, and especially against fourth-string freshman quarterback Carter Smith, who was making his college debut.

Yet Ward was the only one who altered the momentum of the game, setting up Denzel Boston's 1-yard TD catch that briefly gave the Huskies the upper hand.

He had done this before at Arizona in 2023. Only he had not only come through unchecked to swat down a punt, he had picked it up and run 2 yards to score in a 42-18 victory over Utah in Tucson.

"I saw an opportunity and just took it," said Ward, who is a nephew for Washington Commanders linebacker Bobby Wagner, one of the NFL's all-time greats.

Anthony Ward celebrates after blocking a Wisconsin punt.
Anthony Ward celebrates after blocking a Wisconsin punt. | Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

Against Wisconsin, Ward should have emerged as the hero of the game, as the one who turned it into a rout for the Huskies, as the one who made an expected win happen, but the rest of his team couldn't make anything happen.

The game already was a downer in a sense because he had to go it alone without his younger brother, UW edge rusher Isaiah Ward, a 6-foot-5, 235-pound junior who was held out against Illinois and Wisconsin with an injury.

For a special-teams player, two punt blocks on the college level is a nice career in itself for the guys who do this sort of thing. Two are more than practically anyone else.

Ward has four games to go to get another before his college eligibility runs out, to pick up a third block, and maybe the Huskies will turn it into a victory.

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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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