Defense continues to dominate in Huskies’ spring game
SEATTLE – In a fitting finish to a month dominated by the defense, quarterback K.J. Carta-Samuels was stopped short on a fourth-down run to close out the Huskies’ final spring practice Saturday afternoon at Husky Stadium.
The defensive stand gave the Purple team a 17-13 victory in the annual spring preview event, the one spring workout open to the public. The White team tried to persuade officials – to no avail – that Carta-Samuels’ carry was enough for the first down.
“It was definitely short. We won,” said Darrell Daniels, a Purple team tight end. “We’re eating chicken tonight. I’m going to eat my chicken and enjoy eating my chicken.”
Indeed, as the victors, the Purple team got treated with Ezell’s Famous Chicken. The White team had to settle for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“That’s what it’s all about, being able to compete and have fun,” UW coach Chris Petersen said. It changes everything. So it was good. We were a little thin on the O-line. We couldn’t get any more guys hurt there. but we made it through.”
A few thousand fans turned out for Saturday’s practice, which generally looked like a typical spring workout for the Huskies, with a few fun activities sprinkled in for fans.
Starting quarterback Jake Browning, playing for the White team alongside Myles Gaskin, behind most of the second-string offensive line, was on the field for two series, completing 5 of 7 passes for 65 yards, with a 10-yard touchdown pass to John Ross III.
Quarterback Tony Rodriguez led the Purple team, completing 6 of 12 passes for 75 yards. Redshirt freshman Andre Baccellia, continuing his breakthrough spring, had a diving 33-yard catch inside the 10-yard line. That set up a Tristan Vizcaino field goal.
The competition for the backup QB job figures to be one of the more intriguing position battles when the team comes back together in fall camp. Carta-Samuels, the No. 2 QB last fall, relieved Browning for the White team and completed 12 of 17 passes for 105 yards.
Freshman QB Daniel Bridge-Gadd, an early enrollee, completed both of his pass attempts, including a 9-yard TD to Forrest Dunivin.
The lone turnover of the day came on a Baccellia fumble, forced by LB Jake Wambaugh and recovered by De’Andre’ Watson II.
Defensive end Jaylen Johnson had three sacks for the White team, and Vita Vea and Kyler Manu have five tackles each for Purple.
Spring game, anyone?
Petersen was asked if, down the road, he would prefer to have more of a traditional spring game than what he’s done the past three years at UW, which has been more of a modified practice.
“Well, we would, it’s just really hard to do that, numbers-wise,” Petersen said. “When you divide a team, there’s always going to be a group or two that is so thin that now you’re going to play some guys that it’s like – see, if we had our druthers, we’d have a really probably good practice, as coaches, because we think we can even get some more work there. We need to do a little bit of live stuff, but again, this is such a long season for these guys. The scrimmage needs to be minimal this time of year, in our opinion. Now, they really like to do that, and we like to do that, as well. But if you have any sort of senior class, numbers-wise, they walk out, you don’t reload until the fall. That’s why it’s a little bit hard to do that. We didn’t have a lot of seniors, so we were able to do that.”