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Inside The Huskies

Tuputala Has a Lot of Football Left, But He's a College Graduate

The Husky linebacker continues to thrive on and off the field.
Dan Raley|
Tuputala Has a Lot of Football Left, But He's a College Graduate
Tuputala Has a Lot of Football Left, But He's a College Graduate

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Washington Huskies

Not much is supposed to happen in the gap between April spring football and August fall camp for University of Washington football players.

Usually just a little weight-room fine-tuning and some stadium sprints, and that's about it.

Unless, of course, you're Alphonzo Tuputala.

Before he starts again at inside linebacker for a second consecutive season for the Huskies, Tuputala made his family proud again and graduated from college.

No one suggested a degree for him wouldn't happen, rather it's Tuputala's overall body of accomplishments, academics included, that has the people around him bragging him up nonstop.

Over the past 12 months, the 6-foot-2, 238-pound junior from Federal Way, Washington, earned a starting job for the first time, finished as the Huskies' second-leading tackler and received All-Pac-12 honorable-mention accolades, all heady accomplishments.

"Now we know what we've got with Zo," UW coach Kalen DeBoer said this spring. "A year ago, I don't think we really knew that."

This was a guy who received no other Power 5 scholarship offers. He came in with a UW recruiting class alongside three more widely publicized linebackers — Josh Calvert, Miki Ah You and Daniel Heimuli — and he's the only one left. Calvert transferred to Utah and Heimuli to Arizona, while Ah You is now out of football. 

Tuputala earned his starting job last fall after overcoming a debilitating Achilles tendon tear, same as teammate and edge rusher Zion Tupuola-Fetui.

And now this very determined student and athlete, who has two seasons of Husky football left should he choose to use them, is a college graduate. And not just any grad, he's the first in his family to hold up a college degree.

Take a bow, Alphonzo. 

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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