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Washington's Pass Rush 2019 - Joe Tryon & Co
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Caple's latest piece. The good shit is in the WAM.
Upon taking over as coach at Renton’s Hazen High before the 2016 football season, Chris Bennett laid eyes upon a senior who stood 6 feet 5 and weighed about 235 pounds, and figured he had at least one position figured out.
Joe Tryon, Bennett thought, would make one heck of a left tackle.
“Then about two seconds later,” Bennett recalled, “we saw him run, and I was like, ‘OK, there’s no way in hell we can put him there.’”
“He’s the most freakish athlete I’ve ever coached in high school. He ran like a deer,” Bennett said. “He just never came off the field on both sides of the ball.”
And yet: “He was just starting to scratch the surface.”
That brings us to August 2019 and the third week of Tryon’s third preseason camp with the Washington Huskies. He now weighs 262 pounds, plays exclusively outside linebacker and is one of the reasons — perhaps the primary reason — some believe UW can improve its pass rush from a year ago.
When recruiting outside linebackers, co-defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski said, he’s looking primarily for “twitch. Get-off. First step. How they get off on the ball. And then you look at length, how big they potentially could get. When you’re talking about physical attributes, that’s what we’re looking for. Some guys will be really quick and maybe not as fast as they are quick, and we’re good with that. Obviously, we want quick and fast, but those guys, at the size we want them at, are hard to find.”
When he studies NFL pass-rushers, Tryon said, he focuses on players with similar size and length, such as Chandler Jones, Julius Peppers and Anthony Barr, “trying to imagine myself in their position, thinking how they progress through their moves, their run keys, pass keys, all that.”
Last season, Bowman said, “I think we were out there focusing too much on having to make something happen. We were thinking, ‘We’ve got to make a play, we’ve got to make a play,’ instead of just not thinking and playing fast. It’s all about being able to execute fast and not think.”
Perhaps to that point: After leading the team in sacks with 5.5 as a redshirt freshman in 2017, Bowman set a personal sack goal for himself last season. He finished with one and now figures that it’s best to focus instead on simply doing his job and reaping whatever results might come from that approach.
“This year, I’m not going to think about (a number),” he said. “I’m just going to play fast and execute to the best of my abilities, and make it happen.”
Sophomore Ariel Ngata and junior Myles Rice should figure into the rotation, too, as both have taken reps at outside linebacker with UW’s No. 2 defense.
Still, Ngata was one of UW’s spring MVPs, with defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake remarking after the team’s spring preview event that “if he plays that fast, that physical like he did today, those O-linemen aren’t going to be asking what his weight is next year. They’re going to be watching him blow right by ’em.”
There are younger players, too, who could make an impact. Redshirt freshman Zion Tupuola-Fetui saw some snaps in the Rose Bowl last season and has the kind of frame (6-3, 266 pounds) UW covets at the position. He also played volleyball at Pearl City (Hawaii) High.
Laiatu Latu, a true freshman, might be the most intriguing prospect of all. He’s the highest-ranked outside linebacker recruit to sign with the Huskies under coach Chris Petersen, and he seemingly checks every box on Kwiatkowski’s list. Latu (6-4, 275) has uncommon quickness for his size. He looks like a “Madden” create-a-player in his high school highlight video, and he also starred as a rugby player at Carmichael (Calif.) Jesuit in the Sacramento area.
He made enough of an impression in his first couple weeks of camp that Petersen singled him out when asked to name a few standouts among UW’s true freshmen.
“Laiatu is a monster,” Potoa’e said. “He’s a beast.”
“For a freshman, he’s doing really, really well,” Kwiatkowski said. “He’s handling his own physically, and he’s doing a pretty good job mentally.”
If Latu can contribute in a meaningful way as a true freshman, the Huskies could end up with a deeper crew of outside linebackers than they had a year ago (and Potoa’e still might line up on the edge in certain packages).
Upon taking over as coach at Renton’s Hazen High before the 2016 football season, Chris Bennett laid eyes upon a senior who stood 6 feet 5 and weighed about 235 pounds, and figured he had at least one position figured out.
Joe Tryon, Bennett thought, would make one heck of a left tackle.
“Then about two seconds later,” Bennett recalled, “we saw him run, and I was like, ‘OK, there’s no way in hell we can put him there.’”
“He’s the most freakish athlete I’ve ever coached in high school. He ran like a deer,” Bennett said. “He just never came off the field on both sides of the ball.”
And yet: “He was just starting to scratch the surface.”
That brings us to August 2019 and the third week of Tryon’s third preseason camp with the Washington Huskies. He now weighs 262 pounds, plays exclusively outside linebacker and is one of the reasons — perhaps the primary reason — some believe UW can improve its pass rush from a year ago.
When recruiting outside linebackers, co-defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski said, he’s looking primarily for “twitch. Get-off. First step. How they get off on the ball. And then you look at length, how big they potentially could get. When you’re talking about physical attributes, that’s what we’re looking for. Some guys will be really quick and maybe not as fast as they are quick, and we’re good with that. Obviously, we want quick and fast, but those guys, at the size we want them at, are hard to find.”
When he studies NFL pass-rushers, Tryon said, he focuses on players with similar size and length, such as Chandler Jones, Julius Peppers and Anthony Barr, “trying to imagine myself in their position, thinking how they progress through their moves, their run keys, pass keys, all that.”
Last season, Bowman said, “I think we were out there focusing too much on having to make something happen. We were thinking, ‘We’ve got to make a play, we’ve got to make a play,’ instead of just not thinking and playing fast. It’s all about being able to execute fast and not think.”
Perhaps to that point: After leading the team in sacks with 5.5 as a redshirt freshman in 2017, Bowman set a personal sack goal for himself last season. He finished with one and now figures that it’s best to focus instead on simply doing his job and reaping whatever results might come from that approach.
“This year, I’m not going to think about (a number),” he said. “I’m just going to play fast and execute to the best of my abilities, and make it happen.”
Sophomore Ariel Ngata and junior Myles Rice should figure into the rotation, too, as both have taken reps at outside linebacker with UW’s No. 2 defense.
Still, Ngata was one of UW’s spring MVPs, with defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake remarking after the team’s spring preview event that “if he plays that fast, that physical like he did today, those O-linemen aren’t going to be asking what his weight is next year. They’re going to be watching him blow right by ’em.”
There are younger players, too, who could make an impact. Redshirt freshman Zion Tupuola-Fetui saw some snaps in the Rose Bowl last season and has the kind of frame (6-3, 266 pounds) UW covets at the position. He also played volleyball at Pearl City (Hawaii) High.
Laiatu Latu, a true freshman, might be the most intriguing prospect of all. He’s the highest-ranked outside linebacker recruit to sign with the Huskies under coach Chris Petersen, and he seemingly checks every box on Kwiatkowski’s list. Latu (6-4, 275) has uncommon quickness for his size. He looks like a “Madden” create-a-player in his high school highlight video, and he also starred as a rugby player at Carmichael (Calif.) Jesuit in the Sacramento area.
He made enough of an impression in his first couple weeks of camp that Petersen singled him out when asked to name a few standouts among UW’s true freshmen.
“Laiatu is a monster,” Potoa’e said. “He’s a beast.”
“For a freshman, he’s doing really, really well,” Kwiatkowski said. “He’s handling his own physically, and he’s doing a pretty good job mentally.”
If Latu can contribute in a meaningful way as a true freshman, the Huskies could end up with a deeper crew of outside linebackers than they had a year ago (and Potoa’e still might line up on the edge in certain packages).
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