Huskies Keep Everyone on Edge in a Good Way

The UW has a surplus of capable candidates at the pass-rush positions.

Zach Durfee delivers a blow to the throat of offensive guard Aidan Anderson. / Skylar Lin Visuals

Finding a pair of starting edge rushers at the University of Washington to replace the departed Bralen Trice and Zion Tupuola-Fetui seemed like such an easy task.

Yet Jedd Fisch brought a couple of capable ones with him from Arizona only to find the Huskies had multiple players on the roster who could handle the position reliably, even guys with significant skills that weren't readily identifiable with just a quick scan of the roster, plus stats that might have been hidden away.

Then there was the prized player in the transfer portal who previously got away from the UW and wanted to come back.

Just under four months until the season opener, Fisch and his defensive-line coach Jason Kaufusi eventually will line up at least four sets of edge rushers, turn them loose and see who can beat out who. It should be great fun.

The leading candidates, Zach Durfee and Isaiah Ward, each missed half of spring practice with assorted injuries, including the Husky spring game, providing plenty of opportunity for others to advance.

Durfee, of course, is the man with the almost mythic reputation, first waiting for the NCAA to rubber stamp him as eligible and now for his injured right elbow to heal after he came out of a Saturday spring practice hunched over in pain.

A Minnesota native and Sioux Falls transfer, Durfee has exactly four Husky plays against Texas in the Sugar Bowl to his name in Montlake. Again, blame the NCAA for making him an ineligible double transfer and then doing away with the rule as soon as he sat out the prescribed amount of time.

The 6-foot-5, 255-pound Durfee otherwise has just one full season of college football under him, collecting 11 sacks in 11 games for Division II Sioux Falls. It was enough for the previous staff to warn that a defensive storm was coming.

"Genetically, he's maybe the best in the room just by who can run the fastest, who can jump the highest, who's the strongest, you know what I mean," Eric Schmidt, former UW edge coach and now San Diego State defensive coordinator, said of Durfee last season. "I think he might be pound for pound that guy."

Russell Davis II draws instruction from defensive coordinator Steve Belichick. / Skylar Lin Visuals

For two weeks, the Huskies paired Durfee with the wispy 6-foot-5, 225-pound Ward, the younger of two brothers who followed Fisch from Arizona to the UW. This Ward started 11 games for the Wildcats, including the Alamo Bowl against Oklahoma where he came up with a strip sack that was pivotal to his team winning 38-24.

Their absences provided ample opportunity for a cast of characters, even one with a stage name, in Lance "Showtime" Holtzclaw, Jacob Lane, Maurice Heims, Russell Davis II, Voi Tunuufi and even Milton Hopkins Jr. to audition their talents

Holtzclaw is a steadily developing 6-foot-3, 225-pound sophomore who has appeared in 14 games, 11 this past season for the Huskies' national runner-up team, and came up with his first career sack in the Apple Cup against Washington State.

The 6-foot-5, 250-pound Lane was so good as a freshman last fall he forced Kalen DeBoer's staff to play him in nine games, including all three postseason encounters.

Jacob Lane is a strreamlined player for the Huskies with speed. / Skylar Lin Visuals

Heims, a 6-foot-5, 250-pound junior, has appeared in 21 games, including 14 last season, and his desire to move up the depth chart is unquestioned because he's come the farthest to play -- from Hamburg, Germany.

Davis, a 6-foot-3, 225-pound junior and an Arizona transfer, has pedigree: he's the son of a former NFL defensive tackle of the same name who won a Super Bowl. He played in 23 games for the Wildcats and picked up 3.5 sacks.

A little undersized at 6-foot-1 and 260 pounds, Tunuufi splits his time between defensive tackle and the edge. He needs to play. He's piled up 10 career sacks for the UW, including one in which he came off the corner to drop USC quarterback Caleb Williams, the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner and recent No. 1 overall NFL draft pick.

Hopkins is a junior walk-on and former quarterback who fills out a 6-foot-4, 226-pound frame and got on the field for five games last season, including against Arizona and Fisch.

If that weren't enough edge players to sort through, 6-foot-6, 245-pound Jayden Wayne, a Tacoma native and a one-time 4-star recruit, has come home after spending his freshman year at Miami and committed to the Huskies. He played in eight games for the Hurricanes and started the Pinstripe Bowl against Rutgers.

The UW certainly isn't rough around the edges. There's plenty to choose from. Pity the poor opposing quarterback who gets introduced to the guys who finally emerge as the winners of likely an intense competition.

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