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Fabiculanan Draws Safety Start With Turner Unable to Play

The UW faced Michigan State with two-fifths of its usual starting secondary missing.
Dan Raley|
Fabiculanan Draws Safety Start With Turner Unable to Play
Fabiculanan Draws Safety Start With Turner Unable to Play

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Washington Huskies

The University of Washington secondary was expected to get picked on and it did at times, but it was sturdy enough to enable the Huskies to take a 39-28 victory on Saturday night over Michigan State.

This time, the UW found itself down a pair starters with safety Asa Turner getting injured during the week and cornerback Jordan Perryman still unable to come back from suffering leg injury in the opener. That was two-fifths of the defensive backfield missing against a marquee opponent.

Yet it seems as if every week the Kalen DeBoer coaching staff resurrects a player cast aside by the previous regime. 

This time it was Kamren Fabiculanan, moving over from his hybrid Husky spot to replace Turner, who has an unspecified ailment and will miss next week's Pac-12 opener against Stanford, as well.

The player known as Kam Fab and Julius Irvin were the UW's starting safeties a year ago against Montana, but the latter lost his job after the season-opening upset loss and Irvin got replaced after the second game against Michigan.

Against Michigan State, both were first-teamers again. The 6-foot-1, 191-pound Fabiculanan, a sophomore from Camarillo, California, finished second in tackles for the UW with 8, one behind safety Alex Cook, and he had a pass break-up.

He had no problem getting ready to play his old position after learning on Wednesday that Turner was out.

"Very confident," Fabiculanan said. "I take pride in knowing the whole defense. Making the switch was really easy."

Irvin came up with a pair of tackles, a pass deflection and a fourth-quarter interception at the Michigan State 11 that led to a field goal.

"He just keeps biting, scratching and clawing to find his way on the football field," DeBoer said of Irvin. "It happened right in front of me, the pick. It was pretty cool. I could share that moment and tell him how I saw it."

Irvin and Fabiculanan were discarded a year ago as the season went in the tank right away. This time, they're coming to the rescue for the Huskies now off to a 3-0 beginning. 

"Us having the belief in him to go out, not just me but the entire coaching staff, and to come through like that — that's why we coach," DeBoer said, using Irvin as an example. "It means a lot to everyone."

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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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