Trice Hits the Sack Against Arizona, Faces Oregon Looking for More

The Husky edge rusher has had a productive season, it just doesn't necessary show in the numbers.

The people in the know, such as his University of Washington defensive coaches, will tell you that Bralen Trice is having a superlative season. 

He's making opposing offenses drastically change what they do because of him, send plays away from him and devote two players, sometimes even three, to block him.

With so much attention given him so far, Trice needed 19 quarters before he could record his first sack of the season. 

In the third quarter at Arizona, the  Huskies' 6-foot-4, 274-pound junior from Phoenix came barreling in from the left side, jumped on the back of Wildcats quarterback Noah Fifita and brought him down like some championship steer wrestler wearing a big cowboy hat and an equally big belt buckle.

"It felt great finally to home in on one in week five," Trice said. "But I don't really focus on stats, to be honest, I'm just trying to play hard and do my job on the field on a collective defense."

That said, the Husky edge rusher in 2022 piled up 9 sacks over 13 games, including one in the Alamo Bowl that wrapped up a 27-20 victory over Texas and earned him Defensive Player of the Game honors and more.

His season-long statistical outburst helped land him on the All-Pac-12 first team to end the  year and on the Associated Press All-America squad to begin this campaign.

The downside to Trice's current season, but only for him, is the people who decide those aforementioned individual honors tend to look only at stats.

With blockers constantly coming at him from all directions, Trice is doing exactly what he's supposed to do, which is be disruptive.

Yet because he's not been a numbers guy, he might get robbed of the attention he richly deserves in the long run. He could play better than all of the other top edge rushers nationwide and still get short-changed.

As he heads into Saturday's unbeaten showdown with Oregon at Husky Stadium, Trice just smiles and shrugs at the prospects of not being properly singled out when the season is over no matter what he does.

"I don't mind," he said. "I'm here to play football and enjoy it. I love the sport. I'm not looking for any titles or anything like that. I'm just here to win games with my team and have a successful season with them, that's all."

Admittedly, the crush of attention suddenly coming the way of him and his team because of the magnitude of this weekend's Oregon game is great fun for him and his teammates. 

In what some have called the game of the weekend, the No. 7 Huskies will host eighth-ranked Oregon, with both holding up 5-0 records, and finding themselves surrounded by ESPN's College GameDay that will be on site in Montlake early and leads into a national game telecast. 

Trice hardly feels that he and his teammates are lacking any attention, at least this week. 

"I always get fired up for this game," he said. "It's one of those games you look forward to the whole season. It's a game to remember, especially with this season being the last Pac-12 season. GameDay is awesome to have here. It's a big game — why wouldn't they be here?"

For that matter, Trice might even have a couple of sacks saved up for the moment.

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