Washington football is replacing an All-American linebacker who led the nation in tackles, and the outside backers need to step up in the pass rush.
Senior Brandon Wellington has some big shoes to fill for Washington football. He’s got the responsibility of replacing Ben Burr-Kirven last year’s Pac-12 defensive player of the year. Burr-Kirven led the nation in tackles
The two outside linebackers that are expected to start for the Huskies are redshirt sophomores in Ariel Ngata and Joe Tryon. Ngata has taken snaps at both inside and in practice. Training camp will decide which way things go for Ngata.
Tryon is expected to be the Huskies premier pass rusher after coming on late during the 2018 season.
Last year, Tryon played in 12 of the Huskies 14 games. He didn’t play in the opener against Auburn or game three against Utah. The Huskies are hoping Tyron will be the key to the team’s pass rush from the outside. Tryon is another local standout, coming out of Hazen High School in Renton, Washington.
Kyler Manu is currently slotted to take the other inside linebacker spot, but rumors are already swirling that he won’t be able to hold it for the full season.
Manu is hoping to come out of fall camp as one of the starters at linebacker. As a redshirt freshman played in three games followed by seven in 2017. In 2018 he was able to get into every game on the season. Why he has the confidence he can start as an outside linebacker.
Ryan Bowman has played in all 27 games over the last two years, and has been a productive pass rusher in limited spurts. He could be a productive player in the right situation again in 2019.
Redshirt freshman Jackson Sirmon is the player pushing for Manu’s spot, who does have some experience, and we should expect to see him a lot more in 2019.
There are a lot of questions that need answering at linebacker, but we’ll learn them soon enough.