Huskies Go from Owning One Position to Creating 'Edge U'
Amid the collapse of the 2021 season, the University of Washington football team at least could turn to one unusual and upbeat development — it provided both first-team All-Pac-12 cornerbacks, as determined by a vote of the conference coaches.
A year later, the Huskies have done the uncommon once more by owning yet another position across the league, with this situation even more atypical than the first, all while becoming a winning program again.
The UW supplied both first-team All-Pac-12 edge rushers in Bralen Trice and Jeremiah Martin, plus it had a third one in Zion Tupuola-Fetui rewarded with honorable-mention accolades after he had been a first-team, all-conference selection in 2020.
That's a lot of reputable and highly decorated players pigeonholed in one position area all at once.
"We're Edge U," Trice said. "This is only the beginning, too."
The trick here, as Kalen DeBoer's first-year Husky coaching staff learned right away with the departed corners, will be finding suitable replacements for next season should Trice, Martin and ZTF all choose to put their names in the NFL draft.
Outside of former walk-on Mishael Powell, the Jimmy Lake staff didn't leave any polished game-ready cornerbacks for DeBoer and his guys to rely on — and it cost the 10-2 Huskies at least one game, maybe both losses.
Yet DeBoer has found this gaggle of extremely capable and fully developed UW edge rushers to be a most pleasant surprise.
"I think the edges, with ZTF, Bralen and Jeremiah, are probably the position as a whole that impresses me beyond what I realized we had," DeBoer said.
Coming into that 2021 season, Husky cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Kyler Gordon were supposed to be elite players, and they were all of that even with their team melting down around them. they eventually went as the 21st and 39th players overall taken in the NFL draft last April, a first- and second-rounder.
The UW edge rushers were a different story entering this season. Their sample sizes weren't that much, though each of these defenders graded out high as potential playmaker.
Martin counted just one start and a sack in four previous seasons for Texas A&M and the Huskies. Trice opened two games in 2021 and collected a pair of sacks in his first season of play for the UW. Coming off a ruptured Achilles tendon and a concussion a year ago, ZTF was limited to just three starts and a lone sack.
They've made up for any lack of credentials back then with heavy production these days, even with that glaring shortage of veteran and healthy cornerbacks at times making their jobs harder.
Collectively, these three Huskies have piled up 27.5 tackles for loss and 21 sacks over 12 games. When the regular season ended, Martin had 8.5 sacks and Trice 8, ranking them third and fourth in the conference, respectively, and ZTF's 4.5 sacks put him 12th.
Jeremiah Martin hovers over the Portland State QB after Bralen Trice knocked him down.
Skylar Lin Visuals
Martin will use up his eligibility in the Alamo Bowl, while Trice and ZTF have yet to determine whether or not to jump early to the NFL. Martin is definitely done after the postseason game. The thinking is one or none of the other two leaves right away.
The next wave of Husky edge rushers includes 6-foot-3, 259-pound sophomore Sav'ell Smalls, 6-foot-5, 251-pound redshirt freshman Maurice Heims, 6-foot-3, 217-pound freshman Lance "Showtime" Holtzclaw and 6-foot-4, 275-pound junior Sekai Asoau-Afoa. Each carries a certain amount of potential to be disruptive.
Meantime, DeBoer will enjoy the services of his veteran and highly proficient edge rushers playing together one more time in San Antonio against Texas. He certainly knows what he has in these guys after 12 games.
"Now you go back and watch a Pac-12 Networks game or something late at night, and you watch the reruns from last year, and now you do see it come out," the coach said of the talent level. "Now that you see it in person and go back and watch more film, you do see it was there.
"I think these guys are healthier, stronger and faster for different reasons, right, for injuries or just another year in their careers, and a lot of that is happening because of the hard work they're putting in, too."
They're Edge U, highly accredited and clearly motivated.
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