{"id":80728,"date":"2025-09-30T18:00:33","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T22:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=80728"},"modified":"2025-09-30T16:37:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T20:37:29","slug":"injury-updates-and-defensive-adjustments-for-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/09\/30\/injury-updates-and-defensive-adjustments-for-washington\/","title":{"rendered":"Injury Updates and Defensive Adjustments for Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"
Washington will fly to Maryland on Thursday, a day earlier than the typical departure time for an East Coast game. For the trip to Rutgers last year, the team left the day before the game, on Thursday, for what was a Friday game. \u201cOur team is more prepared for those East Coast trips now that we\u2019ve had three of them; this will be the fourth for a few of the guys,\u201d Jedd Fisch said on Monday. \u201cWe\u2019re going to go two days before this week because of the fact that it\u2019s a 3:30pm kick, not an evening kick.\u201d On Monday, Fisch discussed the health of the team going into its first Big Ten road trip of the season.<\/div>\n

Washington Injury Updates<\/h2>\n

Carver Willis, O-Line Update<\/h3>\n
Left tackle Carver Willis<\/a> left the game with under a minute remaining in the first half. It appeared to be a right leg injury, and Fisch called a knee injury after the game. He was seen sitting on a bench on the sideline in street clothes during the second half. On Monday, Fisch said that Max McCree<\/a> and Soane Faasolo<\/a> are competing for that spot leading up to the Maryland game. \u201cMax started against Michigan [last year], had a really good game. Max came in against Ohio State and played well. If Carver can\u2019t make it, then we\u2019ll go with Max to start, most likely.\u201d McCree played 25 snaps against Ohio State after coming in relief for Willis, and he allowed just two quarterback pressures.<\/div>\n
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If Willis cannot go, Fisch also mentioned the several options that the team has that it didn\u2019t have a year ago. It has options behind just inserting McCree at left tackle. It can shuffle the line around if necessary by putting John Mills<\/a> at left tackle and sliding Paki Finau<\/a> into the left guard spot. Fisch also said that Drew Azzopardi<\/a> can switch to left, and true freshman Champ Taulealea can fill in at a guard spot as well. Washington didn\u2019t have this luxury a year ago. While it\u2019s most likely that the only change-up will be McCree at left tackle, it\u2019s reassuring to know that the options extend deeper.<\/div>\n
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Photo Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Front Seven Health<\/h3>\n
Also on Monday this week, Fisch announced that linebacker Buddah Al-Uqdah<\/a> will be out for the remainder of the season. He suffered a knee injury during the Apple Cup. In his replacement, Jacob Manu made his first start as a Husky against the Buckeyes. He played 29 snaps in the game, made three tackles, and had two stops. \u201cWe expect him to be able to take more this week [against Maryland],\u201d Fisch said on Monday. \u201cThat was his first game back, so we had him on a 30-play rep count\u2026and he played very well.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Fisch is also optimistic that true freshman Zaydrius Rainey-Sale will be available this week against the Terrapins. \u201cI think we’re very close with Zaydrius,\u201d Fisch said on Monday. \u201cSo that\u2019s exciting to see Zaydrius back. He\u2019ll be practicing this week full go.\u201d The former top high school player in the state of Washington has been recovering from a knee injury. It\u2019s sounding like there\u2019s a chance he\u2019ll see the field for the first time this weekend.<\/div>\n
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Zach Durfee<\/a> left the Ohio State game with an arm injury, and Fisch said they were looking at his elbow this week. It’s still unclear how long the EDGE rusher will be out. However, Fisch feels good about the five players that they have available to play the two EDGE positions. It includes, of course, Jacob Lane,<\/a> who has started all four games at EDGE\/outside linebacker. They also have Isaiah Ward, Deshawn Lynch, Xe’ree Alexander, and Hayden Moore, who can fill in at that spot.<\/div>\n

Updates in the Secondary<\/h3>\n
Defensive back Rahshawn Clark<\/a> is fully cleared and expected to be back for this weekend\u2019s trip to Maryland after being ruled out for the Ohio State game. Tacario Davis<\/a> did not play after being listed as questionable prior to the Ohio State game. Fisch described his injury as a rib-area injury, but he provided some encouraging news regarding the status of the 6\u2019-4\u201d cornerback. \u201cWe\u2019re hopeful that Tacario will be back as well.\u201d<\/div>\n
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With Davis sidelined against the Buckeyes, Dylan Robinson<\/a> earned his first start at cornerback. He lined up opposite Ephesians Prysock<\/a> with Leroy Bryant<\/a> at nickelback. The true freshman played 61 snaps against the Buckeyes and ended up with the best coverage grade of anyone on the defense in that game. Robinson was targeted three times, giving up three catches for 43 yards. \u201cDylan did a great job of doing the defense, so we’re excited about Dylan.\u201d<\/div>\n

Three-Safety Look<\/h3>\n
Bryant started and played 23 snaps at nickelback, allowing five catches. The Husky defense utilized a lot of three-safety looks as an alternative to their base nickel package. Several times against the Buckeyes, Makell Esteen<\/a>, Rylon Dillard-Allen<\/a>, and Alex McLaughlin<\/a> were on the field at once. \u201cIn some form, I kind of went to nickelback,\u201d Esteen said after the game. \u201cWe trust our safeties in the game, put me, RDA, and Alex in, and I feel like we had a good time and played a good game.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Esteen and McLaughlin each played all 64 defensive snaps, and Dillard-Allen saw 43 defensive snaps in the game. Fisch said that the three-safety look was both a schematic design to combat the Ohio State offense and a product of the injuries to the defense. He said he also wanted to give Julian Sayin<\/a> different looks than what had previously been on film. Fisch reiterated that the goal of the defense was to keep everything in front of them.<\/div>\n
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Washington allowed just three explosive pass plays<\/a> on the day. Two went for 18 yards and one went for 19 yards. It allowed zero plays of 20-plus yards. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a game where there was a lot of chunk plays,\u201d he said. \u201cWe felt that the three safety look was going to make sure that if we wanted to get a double on somebody, we could. But we also were going to be able to have the ability to put a roof on the defense.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Main Photo: James Snook-Imagn Images<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington will fly to Maryland on Thursday, a day earlier than the typical departure time for an East Coast game. For the trip to Rutgers last year, the team left the day before the game, on Thursday, for what was a Friday game. \u201cOur team is more prepared for those East Coast trips now that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3944,"featured_media":80737,"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":[5,2,17,35612],"tags":[33633,3495,33798,33684,1666,34111,33675],"class_list":["post-80728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigten","category-featured","category-news","category-washington-huskies","tag-deshawn-lynch","tag-hayden-moore","tag-isaiah-ward","tag-jacob-manu","tag-jedd-fisch","tag-xeree-alexander","tag-zaydrius-rainey-sale"],"modified_by":"Kate Pearson Halyburton, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80728","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=80728"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80738,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80728\/revisions\/80738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}