Manu Will Tackle Big Assignment at Nebraska

A year ago at this time, Jacob Manu had to choose which four University of Washington football games he would play in during the regular season in order to preserve a fifth year of eligibility.

It was a tedious process, with the 5-foot-10, 225-pound linebacker coming off a knee injury to pull on a uniform and face the likes of Ohio State and Michigan, yet sitting out against a bevy of teams such as Illinois and Wisconsin.

As it turned out, Manu was simply a year too early in his quest to extend his college career to his total advantage. Had the new NCAA rule been available that now offers players five full years of eligibility over a five-year window, he could have played the entire season this year and last.

As it stands, he's put in seven games for the Huskies without a miss, become a team captain and presumably drawn a nice stipend for his services.

Yet Manu has had sort of a ho-hum season for him so far.

After piling up 116 tackles in his last previous full season in 2023, he has just 40 as he enters Saturday night's outing at Nebraska. Surprisingly, he doesn't even lead the UW in that category, trailing safety Alex McLaughlin by 8 tackles. He's probably a little overdue for a command performance.

"I think I've done all right," Manu said this week. "There's still a lot more games left for me to improve. I'm trying to fix the mistakes that I've had."

He began the season with plenty of momentum, picking up 11 tackles against Washington State, including a sack, in the season opener, and he added 9 more tackles against Eastern Washington, both typical Manu outings.

Yet in his other appearances, he's collected 2, 2, 6, 5 and 5 tackles, which are sort of mundane numbers for him considering how much ground he usually covers on game day.

Three years ago, Manu averaged 9 tackles per game; currently, he's at 5.7 each time out.

Jacob Manu had his game face on for the Apple Cup. | Dave Sizer

One reason for this is he's been part of a three-linebacker alignment at times and had to share in the stats before Xe'ree Alexander went down with a high-ankle sprain.

Yet he's not been real concerned about his drop in numbers.

"No, I feel like the main thing for me that matters is the win," he said. "That's the only goal that really matters to me."

Still, Manu can't be too happy with the Husky season (4-3 overall, 1-3 Big Ten) and how it has turned out to this point, but he plays on.

Jacob Manu tackles an Iowa ball carrier. | Dave Sizer

This weekend, he'll concentrate on a different set off numbers, mainly the 85,458 people who will squeeze into Memorial Stadium to see their Cornhuskers (5-2, 2-1) get after it. That can be a little overbearing to some, but the UW linebacker will embrace the Saturday night congestion awaiting him.

"I know they have a great atmosphere over there -- they sell out every game," Manu said. "It's going to be fun to play in. I definitely like that, especially when the game is sold out."

And if he's got a spare 10 tackles sitting around somewhere that he can put to good use, even better.

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