Tacario Davis Didn't Have UW Season He Envisioned

INGLEWOOD, Calif. -- One of the great misfortunes for this University of Washington football team this season is that Tacario Davis hasn't even played in enough games (7) to match his jersey number (8).

Injured on multiple occasions, the 6-foot-4, 200-pound cornerback is considerd a top 50 NFL draft pick and he's barely made it on to the field for just over half of the games.

Growing up just 20 miles away from the LA Bowl in Long Beach, Davis has come face to face with his final college football game at Saturday's game against Boise State and he might not get to play in it.

“We’ll have to work him out before the game,” UW coach Jedd Fisch said on Friday. “We don’t want to take any risk there, especially with the chance of the Senior Bowl, the Combine, the fact that he’s going to be such a highly drafted kid. We’ve got to make sure that he’s healthy. We don’t want to set him back.”

It's sort of become a lost season for Davis, who injured his ribs while falling on the football after making a diving interception against UC Davis and then suffered a severe hamstring pull over the latter half of the season.

He missed games against Washington State, Ohio State, Maryland, UCLA and Oregon. Against the then No. 1-ranked Buckeyes and the then No. 6 Ducks, those formidable opponents naturally picked on his freshman replacement Dylan Robinson and made him pay for his youthfulness on such a big stage.

Davis had much bigger plans with the Huskies when he transferred in last winter after three seasons at Arizona and reunited with the Fisch coaching staff.

Tacario Davis gets ready for another play against Rutgers. | Dave Sizer photo

Before the season, he proclaimed how he wanted to be an All-American selection. Yet you have to be on the field most of the time to rate consideration for that lofty reward.

While he previously was feted as an All-Pac-12 second-team pick and an All-Big 12 second-team recipient in the two previous seasons he recently was named All-Big Ten honorable mention, which was a noteworthy feat considering he played in just those seven games and only five in conference play.

He comes to this LA Bowl with 19 tackles, 2 interceptions and 3 pass break-ups, all numbers he likely would have doubled if he could have stayed healthy.

Tacario Davis embraces a UW teammate in the Rutgers game. | Dave Sizer photo

Fisch said Davis practiced with the Huskies this past week, but there's a fairly wide gap between going through a workout and actually playing in the game.

To Fisch's credit, he's right to hold out his standout player if there's any chance of further injury, considering the NFL future that awaits him.

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