Taulealea Played Like A Champ Against Purdue

For the third series of the University of Washington-Purdue football game, the field suddenly tilted to the right.

Freshman Champ Taulealea, listed at 6-foot-5 and 330 pounds and probably much heavier than that, was inserted at right offensive guard and lined up next to a fellow freshman, the 6-foot-6, 342-pound John Mills, who was at right tackle.

That was 670-680 pounds of prime offensive-line beef right there.

While the Huskies were mixing and matching linemen because of injuries to junior center Landen Hatchett and junior right tackle Drew Azzopardi, Taulealea lumbered onto the field in a scripted fashion to spell senior Geirean Hatchett.

"Champ's good, Champ's really good," Fisch said. "We wanted to make sure that we got Champ going. We wanted to get him in there."

In game 10, it wasn't unlike what happened last season at this juncture when the Huskies turned more to then-freshman Demond Williams Jr. at quarterback at the expense of senior Will Rogers, with a definite eye on the future.

While Hatchett played about half the time in the UW's 49-13 victory over Purdue and should retain his starting role, it appears he's going to have to share more game time coming down the stretch.

Taulealea can play in the final regular-season games against UCLA and Oregon without losing any eligibility.

"We have high, high expectations of Champ and what he's going to do for us," Fisch said. "Champ is another big player and that's what we wanted. We brought him in here and he and John Mills have separated themselves a little bit with that freshman class."

At one point, the Huskies played freshmen together in three of the five starting offensive-line slots against Purdue, with redshirt freshman Paki Finau pulling a third start this season at left offensive guard once Mills was installed at right tackle.

While preserving his redshirt eligibility, Taulealea from Milpitas, California, got on the field for just his second time this season after earlier drawing late snaps against UC Davis in a 70-10 blowout.

Champ Taulealea and Soane Faasolo leave the practice field together. | Dan Raley

This time, however, Taulealea was sent into a scoreless game against the Boilermakers for his first real meaningful college football snaps.

He looked mobile and physical, as shown in the above photo, running 10-15 yards downfield on the play in which wide receiver Raiden Vines-Bright was seriously injured and later taken away in an emergency vehicle.

"I was glad to see him get some work today," Fisch said of his thickly built freshman guard.

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