Here's the Best Position Battle When Husky Football Resumes

The UW starting lineup is fairly well set coming out of spring practice.

Kalen DeBoer and his University of Washington football coaches have four months to think about it — the starting lineup, that is.

Meantime, they will conduct another month of practices and a handful of scrimmages in August, replay the video over and over, and talk about pressing personnel matters long into the night.

The encouraging news for these Huskies is they came out of spring  ball seemingly set on all 22 starters, with 21 of these guys previously having opened at least one UW game before and 14 of them serving as first-teamers on a full-time basis in 2022.

Of this group, only transfer cornerback Jabbar Muhammad hasn't started a Husky game before, but he pulled a dozen opening assignments last fall for Oklahoma State, and 13 in his Big 12 career.

With all of this tested talent walking around, the challenge here for us is to find the starting position that's least secure and open to change before the UW takes the field for the season opener on Sept. 2 against Boise State at Husky Stadium.

While junior Cam Davis comes off a 13-touchdown season and appears solidly in place as the top Husky running back, Mississippi State transfer Dillon Johnson, who missed most of spring football with an injury, should make things interesting once he's at full speed again. He's a one-time SEC back who didn't come to Seattle to sit and watch.

USC transfer Ralen Goforth, a 17-game starter at USC, can't be summarily dismissed from the linebacker competition either, even though returning starter Alphonzo Tuputala and 2020 second-team All-Pac-12 selection and the now healthy again Edefuan Ulofoshio are running No. 1. Goforth might hit harder than anyone on the team, including noted head-cruncher Carson Bruener.

At cornerback, sophomore Elijah Jackson impressively emerged from UW spring football as the starter lining up opposite Muhammad, but JC transfer Thaddeus Dixon looks just as capable of holding down that secondary spot, as well. Jackson and Dixon might be interchangeable players.

However, the closest thing to an uncertain UW starting position could be at left guard, which is currently occupied by 6-foot-8, 310-pound junior Julius Buelow. Whereas other personnel tinkering in spring practice resulted in what amounted to hockey-like shift changes, the Huskies fairly regularly swapped out Buelow for 6-foot-4, 297-pound sophomore Geirean Hatchett, man for man, just to see what the O-line would look like with the latter.

If Buelow falters at all moving forward, Hatchett will slide into that guard spot. For that matter, should the Huskies need an emergency No. 1 tackle this fall, right or left side, Hatchett likely will get the call there, too. 

In 2021, Buelow opened the season as the left-guard starter and logged five starts before having so much trouble handling speed rushers that he sat down in favor of first Ulumoo Ale and then Troy Fautanu. 

Buelow has had a season and a half to think about getting the position back and keeping it, and his coaches say he's a much better player now, has done everything he's been asked so far and it's his job to lose.

However, Hatchett, as heavily recruited as any other UW offensive lineman on the roster in recent times, appeared in all 13 Husky games in 2022, even pulling time as an extra tight end. He's been groomed for regular duty and he's now entering his fourth season in the program, and Hatchett couldn't be faulted if he was now getting a little impatient for something to happen and become fully involved on Saturdays.

If the UW starting lineup fluctuates at all before the Boise State opener, look for Hatchett to be the guy who changes things up and becomes a starter for the first time.

 

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