Tacario Davis Appears Ready to Return Against Rutgers

The University of Washington football team ruled out five players for the Rutgers game, but Tacario Davis was not among them, meaning the senior cornerback should play on Friday night after suffering a rib injury and missing the previous three contests.

The five players who showed up as unavailable on the Big Ten availability report released two hours before kickoff were freshman offensive guard John Mills (foot), senior offensive tackle Carver Willis (knee), senior edge rusher Zach Durfee (elbow), sophomore wide receiver Rashid Williams (collarbone) and senior safety CJ Christian (toe).

Mills went down in the third quarter of last weekend's 24-20 win at Maryland and his absence will make his replacement, redshirt freshman Paki Finau, a Husky starter for the first time.

The 6-foot-4, 200-pound Davis played in the Huskies' first two games, but injured his ribs when he went fully extended against UC Davis, in a 70-10 victory, to intercept a pass and landed on the football.

He worked out prior to kickoff of each of the past three games against Washington State, Ohio State and Maryland, even dressing in a full uniform, but he couldn't get himself ready to play without significant pain.

Davis is arguably the Huskies' top defensive back and considered one of the team's top pro prospects. In the previous two seasons at Arizona, he was chosen as a second-team All-Big 12 and second-team All-Pac-12 selection.

The 6-foot-5, 312-pound Willis and the 6-foot-5, 258-pound Durfee were each injured in the first half of the Ohio State game, a 24-6 loss at home two weeks ago, missed the Maryland outing and are still in recovery.

Max McCree, a 6-foot-6, 302-pound senior, replaced Willis for the Maryland game and Isaiah Ward, a 6-foot-5, 235-pound junior stepped in for Durfee.

McCree started five games at left tackle in 2024; Ward opened six outings on the edge last season.

The Big Ten availability list showed five UW players who are out for the season: junior linebacker Buddah Al-Uqdah (knee), redshirt freshman safety Rahim Wright Jr. (arm), senior nickelback Dyson McCutcheon (shoulder), redshirt freshman tight end Charlie Crowell (knee) and junior edge rusher Russell Davis II (knee).

Al-Uqdah started the Huskies' first three games before he was injured at Washington State, playing against his former school.

Davis appread in three games in 2024, and was named co-Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week following a 3-sack outing against UCLA, but injured an elbow the following week and then suffered a season-ending knee injury over the summer.

No Huskies were listed as questioned on the current conference breakdown.

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