Totally Unfazed By It All, UW's Brailsford Takes Early Success in Stride

However, Husky coach Kalen DeBoer said his redshirt freshman offensive guard was "fantastic" his first time out.

Everyone talks about how cool Michael Penix Jr. is under fire, but the University of Washington quarterback might have met his match in one of the guys entrusted with keeping him upright these days, someone who plays just a few feet away.

As the No. 1 offensive right guard for the Huskies, Parker Brailsford doesn't flinch, blink or even seem to have a pulse.

Send anyone at him on a pass rush and he calmly pushes back on the intruder. Ask him any media question, and he's more likely to go "hmmm" before formulating an easy answer. 

Brailsford is so even keel, so relaxed with his Montlake football situation, life just seems to slow down to a comfortable pace all around him.

His college football story just keeps getting better and better every day — the 6-foot-2, 275-pound redshirt freshman from Mesa, Arizona, has gone from unused, developmental player to serious job candidate to opening-day starter to the Huskies' highest-graded offensive lineman in their season-opening 56-19 victory over Boise State.

Preparing for Saturday's second game against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane, he'll acknowledge that what's taken place for him is hardly the norm, but that's all you're going to get for now.

"It's not regular for this type of thing to happen," Brailsford said of his rapid football ascension. "I feel like I've worked for it, I feel like I've earned it and I feel I'm going to continue working to be better every day."

Leave it to those closely watching everything unfold for this compact, super-strong player to voice a little enthusiasm over what's going on.

"Parker, in particular, for his first game out there, I thought he played fantastic," UW coach Kalen DeBoer said. "He'll continue to learn and grow, but the moment definitely wasn't too big for him."

If Brailsford was a super hero, and his football play is leaning hard in that direction, we would follow DeBoer's lead and dub him "Captain Fantastic," where he would portray this comic book character who can pick up and throw down those who ill-advisedly venture into his work space.

For now, the unflappable Brailsford represents the only young guy on the UW roster who's holding down a starting job on a veteran team, handling tremendous responsibility — i.e., keeping Michael Penix out of the hands of others who wish to do him football harm — and finding himself totally unfazed by it all.

"I didn't feel any different at the end of the day," Brailsford said of his first college game. "It was just football."

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