UW Football Honors Candidates Emerge, But Here's Who Might Be Missing
While University of Washington football players are lifting a lot of weights and running through Ron McKeefery's creative winter conditioning drills, college football analysts are trying their best to get ready for another season, too.
These latter guys are watching film, reading news accounts and badgering sources for input on the next group of elite players.
Pro Football Focus might be the most fair in this process, showering accolades on people strictly from a metrics standpoint, deciding that the numbers never lie.
After all, that's how they deemed the Huskies' Edefuan Ulofoshio as one of the nation's best linebackers 18 months ago and, while he's still active and preparing for his sixth-year senior season, Ulofoshio currently is nowhere to be found.
The UW player, whose Nigerian name when translated means "unafraid of war," had a lot of stats before his series of injuries and almost no stats since.
Keeping that in mind, Husky players rightfully are rating plenty of attention entering 2023 after collectively sharing in an impressive 11-2 bounce-back season after their 4-8 disaster two years ago.
Michael Penix Jr. led the nation in average passing yards per game. His main targets Rome Odunze and Jalen McMillan each came up with 1,000-yard receiving seasons. Edge rusher Bralen Trice topped the nation in quarterback pressures.
For that reason, PFF currently ranked the top 10 college players in each position area and came up with those four UW players.
Penix was slotted No. 4 nationally as a returning QB, behind USC's Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams, North Carolina's Drake Maye and Florida State's Jordan Travis; Odunze and McMillan emerged as No. 3 and 6 in the receiver rankings, with Ohio State's Marvin Harrison and Emeka Egbuka, the latter a Northwest kid from the greater Tacoma area, ranking 1-2; while Trice pencils out as the second-best edge rusher, behind only Florida State's Jared Verse.
Here's what PFF had to say about Penix, the second-year Husky quarterback and former Big Ten player as he enters his sixth college football season:
Penix led the Power Five in 2022 with 4,641 passing yards, and his 1.3% turnover-worthy play rate ranked fifth lowest in the country. The Indiana transfer led Washington to an 11-2 record, the Huskies’ best season since they made the College Football Playoff in 2016. He returns to Washington as a top Heisman contender in 2023.
In a top 10 quarterback listing unveiled by On3sports this week, Penix surpassed Florida State's Travis to rank third behind Williams and Maye.
For that matter, Penix and Williams will go head to head on Nov. 4 in Los Angeles when the UW and USC meet for the last time in a conference game that could flip flop all of the individual rankings.
While these early returns are impressive enough for the Huskies and the PFF numbers back things up, we still wondered if anyone who wears the purple and gold was missing from this exercise in receiving preseason honors, especially on the top 10 list, or simply might show up later.
Three names come to mind right away: offensive tackle Troy Fautanu, cornerback Jabbar Muhammad and Ulofoshio.
Fautanu, a second-team All-Pac-12 selection as a left tackle, made one of the UW's biggest individual and more understated advancements last season. His forward progress prompted Kalen DeBoer's coaching staff to make the gutsy decision of moving then two-time, all-conference selection Jaxson Kirkland inside to left guard to make room for the 6-foot-4, 312-pound Fautanu on the outside in the so-called NFL money position.
Stat-wise, Fautanu was a huge reason the Huskies permitted just 7 sacks all seasons and kept Penix from getting hurt again.
The 5-foot-10, 180-pound Muhammad comes to Montlake after three seasons at Oklahoma State, including 2022 in which he was named All-Big 12 honorable mention following 48 tackles, 9 pass break-ups and an interception. Pad his numbers against passing-minded Pac-12 teams and he could suddenly draw a lot of attention.
Finally, Ulofoshio, if he can stay healthy this season, still has to be among the best at what he does. This is a veteran, play-making inside linebacker who previously piled up 18 tackles against Stanford (2020), 16 against Oregon State (2021), 14 against Utah (2020) and 13 against Michigan (2021).
Return to those types of numbers and there's no telling how many lists he might show up on while he makes a case for an NFL career.
Go to si.com/college/washington to read the latest Inside the Huskies stories — as soon as they’re published.
Not all stories are posted on the fan sites.
Find Inside the Huskies on Facebook by searching: Inside Huskies/FanNation at SI.com or https://www.facebook.com/dan.raley.12
Follow Dan Raley of Inside the Huskies on Twitter: @DanRaley1 or @UWFanNation or @DanRaley3
Have a question, direct message me on Facebook or Twitter.
