UW Fresh Start (No. 58): ZTF Out to Show He's More Than 3-Game Wonder
Edge rusher Zion Tupuola-Fetui possesses one of the most dominant three-game defensive binges in University of Washington football annals. He proved as disruptive as Steve Emtman, as worrisome as Hau'oli Kikaha.
To open the 2020 season while making his first collegiate start against Oregon State, Tupuola-Fetui supplied a pair of strip sacks and forced a fumble. A week later, he registered two more sacks against Arizona, forcing yet another fumble. Another week later against Utah, he piled up three sacks, which included a forced fumble and a fumble recovery.
Whew.
The player known as ZTF was a monster all over the football field. No one could slow down this guy until he faced Stanford. Quarterbacks ran for their lives. Coaches dug deep for superlatives. He seemed to enjoy all of the newfound attention coming his way.
Over a short but unforgettable season before the pandemic abruptly brought things to a halt, the 6-foot-4, 260-pound Hawaiian was named Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week three times and he later was rewarded with first-team All-Pac-12 accolades and second-team All-America honors.
However, the clock struck 12 or something like that on his football fairy tale.
Tupuola-Fetui had his instant notoriety and personal momentum squelched by an Achilles tendon tear a year ago in spring football that came without contact and sent him to surgery.
While his speedy six-month recovery process was nothing short of amazing, ZTF appeared in just five games in 2021, starting three of them. Not surprisingly, he wasn't the same guy. A different injury, possibly a concussion, ended his season with Colorado and WSU games still to be played. He logged just one sack throughout this return engagement.
In this past offseason, ZTF announced he wouldn't be entering the NFL draft just yet, which would have been foolhardy for him from a financial standpoint, because he still hasn't showed he can be a disruptive force once again. Still, at least one mock draft pegged him as a high first-rounder while he rehabbed.
The outside linebacker intimated he would consider his options, presumably because a new coaching staff took over. This seemed to suggest the transfer portal was a possibility before the junior made a big show that he was coming back to the Huskies.
Less than a week until spring practice, we're offering intel and observations gathered on the UW football personnel in a series of stories on every scholarship player from No. 0 to 99. We'll review each Husky's previous starting experience, if applicable, and determine what comes next under coach Kalen DeBoer.
As is the case with any coaching change, it's a new football beginning for everyone, including the Huskies' No. 58.
ZTF has played in 23 games over four seasons, including the 2019 Rose Bowl against Ohio State. He's started nine times. He has 31 career tackles, though his pandemic flurry made it seem like so much more.
The Pearl City, Hawaii, product seems content to finish up at the UW, even expressing his appreciation for the DeBoer staff's enthusiastic approach to winter workouts in a Seattle sports-talk radio interview. He's regularly turned up in Husky training videos and photos that have been posted on social media.
His next move is to show he's regained all of his physical prowess, that he be unstoppable again, that can be that NFL first-round draft pick. He needs to put the fear of ZTF in opposing quarterbacks and make them absolutely cringe again at the sight of him coming off the edge hard and fast. He has to do this for more than three games, too.
UW Starter or Not: Starting is the least of ZTF's issues. He needs and wants to be a great football player again. DeBoer's defense will demand all of that from him and more. In a perfect world, look for the defensive playmaker to regain his big-play persona, entertain the Husky Stadium masses and use this season to restore his high-end NFL prospects.
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