{"id":75680,"date":"2025-07-25T16:37:47","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T20:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=75680"},"modified":"2025-09-16T21:38:42","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:38:42","slug":"washingtons-ephesians-prysock-at-big-ten-media-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/07\/25\/washingtons-ephesians-prysock-at-big-ten-media-days\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington’s Ephesians Prysock at Big Ten Media Days"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington players took the individual podiums in Las Vegas for their media sessions at Big Ten Media Days<\/a>. Senior cornerback Ephesians Prysock<\/a> is preparing for his final year of eligibility and provided great insight during his availability. He broke down some of the technical skills he\u2019s been working on at his position and Ryan Walters\u2019 coaching style as a defensive coordinator. Prysock also spoke to the relationship he has with several of the Arizona transfers, and what it means to be in the same locker room with those guys once again.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prysock Takes Podium at Media Days<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Reunited 2022 Arizona Class<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Eight members of Jedd Fisch\u2019s 2022 recruiting class at Arizona are now on the roster at Washington. \u201cIt just feels good man, to have a lot of those guys back on this team this year,\u201d Prysock said. “It just feels amazing just to go to war with the same guys I came in with. And kind of go out with them as well.\u201d Prysock was a four-star and the highest-rated recruit among defensive players in that class. Other defensive players who now play for Washington include fellow 6\u2019-4\u201d cornerback Tacario Davis<\/a>, Isaiah Ward<\/a>, Ta\u2019ita\u2019i Uiagalelei<\/a>, and Jacob Manu<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

EDGE rusher Russell Davis II<\/a> is another defensive player from that recruiting class. But at Big Ten Media Days, Fisch announced that Davis would be out for the season with an injury. With his unfortunate absence from the playing field this season, seven of the eight former Arizona players in that top 25 recruiting class of 2022 will either be starters for Washington this season or in the rotation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Improving Coverage Skills<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Prysock made a jump in his coverage skills at cornerback from his 2023 season to his performance in 2024. As a sophomore at Arizona, Prysock allowed 38 receptions and just over 600 receiving yards in coverage on 63 targets. That equates to roughly a 60% completion rate in coverage. In 2024 at Washington, he was targeted slightly less, just 51 times, but allowed only 28 receptions for 411 yards. That dropped his completion rate to 54% in coverage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been working on a lot of off-man, a lot of zone coverages,\u201d Prysock said in Las Vegas. \u201cA lot of just my weaknesses.\u201d Man coverage figures to be something we see frequently in the Husky defense under Walters. In man, Prysock said that he and cornerback Davis can use their 6\u2019-4\u201d length to their advantage in coverage. \u201cWe get to put our hands on some receivers, and lock them down, man,\u201d he began. \u201cIt\u2019s easier for us to put our hands on guys, like jam \u2018em, and different things.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Walters’ Coaching Style<\/strong><\/h3>\n

During his tenure at Illinois, Walters took an Illini defense that ranked 114th in the nation in 2020 to third in the nation in 2022. The Illinois secondary fielded some talented players in the secondary, and he was able to refine their skills while implementing his signature cover-one defense. Walters forged an elite secondary and top-tier defense.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe coaches us hard,\u201d Prysock said. \u201cI like him because he gets on us, coaches hard. When things don\u2019t go right, he lets us know.\u201d Walters is detail-oriented in his coaching. This Spring, we watched as Walters went through his defensive installation process with his players. They\u2019d repeat reps and walk-throughs at half-speed, reinforcing the importance of their assignments and precision. The formula for success in Walters’ defense has been proven at Illinois. Watching him repeat it at Washington and hearing Prysock\u2019s comments regarding his coaching style are great signs that his formula is being replicated on Montlake.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Image: Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington players took the individual podiums in Las Vegas for their media sessions at Big Ten Media Days. Senior cornerback Ephesians Prysock is preparing for his final year of eligibility and provided great insight during his availability. He broke down some of the technical skills he\u2019s been working on at his position and Ryan Walters\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3944,"featured_media":75685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,17,35612],"tags":[7983,33177,1666,10272,509],"class_list":["post-75680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-bigten","category-news","category-washington-huskies","tag-big-ten-football","tag-ephesians-prysock","tag-jedd-fisch","tag-ryan-walters","tag-washington-huskies"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3944"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75680"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75686,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75680\/revisions\/75686"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}