Huskies Lost Battle of the Linebackers to Iowa, Too

On Friday night at Husky Stadium, the linebackers were everywhere, making tackles, sacking the quarterback, disrupting things left and right.

Yet this was Iowa creating havoc rather than the hometown team, setting the tone defensively with its aggressive second row and dominating play in a convincing 41-24 victory over the University of Washington.

The instigators were Hawkeyes starting linebackers Cam Buffington and Jayden Montgomery, a couple of small-town guys from Winfield, Iowa, and Suamico, Wisconsin, respectively, who came to the big city of Seattle and left their mark on the Huskies.

On this night, the UW plan was to lead with their own linebackers, as well, by starting three of them together in Jacob Manu, Zaydrius Rainey-Sale and Xe'ree Alexander.

However, Alexander suffered a high-ankle sprain and was lost for much of the evening and probably longer going forward with the game's only significant injury.

Meantime, his fellow Husky linebackers had decidedly ordinary outings as this game got out of hand real quick in the opening quarter.

It was Buffington, a 6-foot-3, 238-pound third-year player from a small Iowa farm town of 1,033, who provided the game's pivotal play early on. He shot through to sack quarterback Demond Williams Jr. for a 9-yard loss after the Hawkeyes had been held to a pair of field goals.

Another defensive snap and a punt later, Iowa's Kamari Moulton took a handoff and broke four tackles on his way to a 56-yard touchdown run and the rout was on.

Jacob Manu comes up to stop Iowa running back Kamari Moulton at Husky Stadium. | Dave Sizer photo

With the Hawkeyes leading 20-0, Buffington and the 5-foot-11, 227-pound Montgomery each sacked Williams over three plays and lasting damage was done.

Montgomery hails from what's known as a village of 12,820 people north of Green Bay yet welcomes the Iowa limelight.

Both Iowa linebackers finished with 8 tackles for a solid day's work. The city lights were none too bright for them.

Meantime, Manu and Rainey-Sale tried to hold the Husky defense together, but they never got near Iowa quarterback Jeremy Hecklinski, normally the back-up who was making his first college start and had his way with the locals.

Zaydrius Rainey-Sale looks over the Iowa offense. | Dave Sizer photo

Manu and Rainey-Sale each finished with 5 tackles, while the hobbled Alexander was credited with 3 before limping off.

With so many UW offensive struggles created from injured running backs, wide receivers and Landen Hatchett, it was hoped the Husky defense, led by those linebackers, would take charge and buy the offense some time.

Yet the defensive unit as a whole has either underperformed or wasn't as good as advertised, with turnovers and sacks at a minimum so far.

Manu ranks as the Huskies' second-leading tackler with 35, six behind safety Alex McLaughlin, while Rainey-Sale is fourth-best with 25 tackles and Alexander is seventh with 19.

Only Manu has any sacks with 2.5 on his ledger while only Rainey-Sale has a pair of pass break-ups and no one counts any interceptions so far.

As with the rest of this UW team, which has lost three consecutive games, much more was expected.

Add us as a preferred source on Google