UW Roster Review, No. 0-99: Vick Curne Took the Spring Off, Not by Choice
Victor Curne had a lot of time think about his Husky football career this spring.
Too much time.
An agonizingly inactive time.
Limping around, the 6-foot-3, 320-pound sophomore offensive tackle from Houston watched and watched and watched with a boot on his left foot.
That is, when Curne wasn't seated atop an exercise bike, spinning away to while away several minutes of the April morning workouts.
Or gingerly stretching while his fellow University of Washington line mates went through their daily drills.
The Texan missed half of spring practice and adroitly summed up his experience with a fitting insect analogy.
Curne was, as he tweeted, got splattered all over the glass. The windshield won.
When he was buzzing around, the starting right tackle found that life was very good.
He started all four of the pandemic games, earning a first-team assignment after a dominant showing while coming off the bench against Boise State in the Huskies' 38-7 victory in the 2019 Las Vegas Bowl.
Curne won the job over some formidable competitors such in Corey Luciano and Matteo Mele, who both filled in for him this spring.
While his spring absence no doubt saved on wear and tear, the big man seemed to get bigger, looking heavier than his advertised 330-pound frame. The UW lists him at 10 below that now, so the trainers likely have been melting him back into shape.
Vick Curne rides an exercise bike while injured.
Dan Raley
Going down the roster in numerical order, this is another of our post-spring assessments of all of the Husky talent at hand, gleaned from a month of observations, as a way to keep everyone engaged during the offseason.vic
Curne wears No. 79, the only guy to do so on a roster full of duplicates. It's a jersey previously visible by the efforts of Steve Thompson, Dennis Brown and Coleman Shelton, all eventually NFL players and the first two becoming Super Bowl participants.
Vic Curne makes a line call.
USA TODAY Sports
While Jaxson Kirkland is an All-American candidate at left tackle, and Luke Wattenberg is playing his sixth season and starting his fifth for the Huskies at center, Curne best resembles one of those vaunted SEC offensive linemen.
Not only is he from Houston, an SEC city, he takes that huge bulk of his and runs well with it while knocking down defenders.
Similar to Kirkland, he made a redshirt freshman breakthrough, got on the field and earned some conference honors. He has three seasons of eligibility remaining, thanks to the pandemic provisions.
Curne just has to get off the sideline now, off the exercise bike and, above all, off the windshield.
Curne's 2021 Outlook: Projected starting offensive tackle
UW Service Time: Played in 11 games, started 4
Stats: None
Individual Honors: All-Pac-12 honorable mention
Pro Prospects: 2024 NFL second-day draftee
Find Husky Maven on Facebook by searching: HuskyMaven/Sports Illustrated
Follow Dan Raley of Husky Maven on Twitter: @DanRaley1 and @HuskyMaven
