Washington tailback has message to foes: Bring it on!

Published 9:58 am Wednesday, October 22, 2008

SEATTLE — If Terrance Dailey hadn’t been properly initiated to college football prior to last Saturday, Oregon State safety Al Afalava certainly got that out of the way in the second quarter.

As Dailey, a true freshman tailback making his first start and playing just his second game, ran down the sideline looking for a Ronnie Fouch pass, Afalava, one of the Pac-10’s hardest hitters, locked in on his target.

The ensuing hit not only kept Dailey from making the catch, it tore his mouth guard, cut his lip, knocked the wind out of him and bruised some ribs.

After the game, Dailey said something very few people ever have.

“Part of my lip went on the trainer,” he said with a swollen smile.

Dailey wasn’t done, however. He was hurting, but he wasn’t ready to have his first start cut short.

“I’ve never been hit that hard before,” said the 5-foot-10, 194-pound Dailey. “I couldn’t breathe.”

But he also wouldn’t call it an afternoon. After regaining his breath, Dailey walked off the field and had a message for the Oregon State defenders who were talking trash to him. Still bleeding from the mouth and woozy from the hit, he warned the Beavers that he would be back.

“He’s got a swagger,” offensive coordinator Tim Lappano said. “He was bleeding from his mouth and told them he’d be back. He was in my hip pocket immediately demanding to get back in the game, and I love that. And he wanted the ball. It’s all good.”

Dailey was talking plenty as he went off the field, but he backed that talk up once he returned. After missing only one series, Dailey was back in the game and he eventually finished with 102 yards on 16 carries, making him the Huskies’ first 100-yard rusher of the season.

In the fourth quarter, he burst through the hole up the middle and outran Oregon State’s secondary for a 59-yard touchdown.

“I got the ball and there was a big hole,” Dailey said Monday, his upper lip still swollen. “I saw the two safeties, and I just thought to myself, ‘Maybe I have enough speed to split them,’ and I was able to split them and got away from the corner. It was exciting.”

The same swagger that led a freshman to talk back to Oregon State’s defenders has served him well in his time at Washington. Like any freshman who dominated the competition in high school, the Vacaville (Calif.) High School product thought he belonged on the field from day one.

“Everybody wants to come in like that,” Dailey said. “So of course I thought I could come in, play the first game and start, but I definitely think now I can make an impact if I just keep working hard.”

Dailey wasn’t quite ready from Day 1, his coaches say, but a player who thought he was good enough right away also had the work ethic to do what was needed to get onto the field.

“The playbook was very difficult for him,” Lappano said. “The amount of protections and pass game and all that kind of stuff was a lot different from what he did in high school. The horizontal running, we worked really hard on that. He’s very coachable. He comes in, first guy in Sunday to watch film.”

And as he learned, it became apparent that Dailey wasn’t going to spend the season on the sideline. During Washington’s first bye week, a time freshmen got a chance to scrimmage, Dailey showed teammates and coaches that he was ready to make an impact this year.

“He got better all the time and we had those three rookie scrimmages the first bye week and he went off,” Lappano said. “Everybody on the team, players and coaches, knew he was pretty good.

“So, at the Arizona game it was, ‘Let’s go.’ We have seven games left, let’s play this kid. He’s going to give us something in the run game we don’t have with Jake gone now. We’ve got to have somebody that can take the ball the distance and do something for you. He proved us right in the Oregon State game.”

Dailey played only sparingly against Arizona, but did enough to win the starting job with David Freeman still out with an ankle injury. Dailey became the third true freshman and fourth freshman overall to start at tailback this season for Washington. True freshman Chris Polk started the first two games, but suffered a season-ending shoulder injury against BYU. David Freeman started the next two games, and had a promising first half against Stanford, but went out with a high-ankle sprain. Willie Griffin, a redshirt freshman, started against Arizona, but saw limited action after he fumbled twice.

Freeman might be able to return this week, but Dailey’s big game appears to have made him the starter regardless of who is healthy.

“I thought Terrance did a wonderful job, and right now we’ve got him scheduled to start this week,” Washington coach Tyrone Willingham said. “If he continues along that line he could make that a permanent position. … He had some good runs there, so that seems to be very promising.”

In a season that sinks lower and lower with each passing week, promising is exactly what the Huskies can use right now, and in a nationally televised game against Notre Dame this weekend, Dailey hopes to continue showing that promise.

Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on UW sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com/huskiesblog