SEATTLE — For the first time since the 2000 season, a guy named Tui will be taking snaps at Husky Stadium.
Only this Tui, Willie Tuitama, will be playing against the Huskies as the quarterback of the Arizona Wildcats. Like former Washington standout Marques Tuiasosopo, Tuitama has been surrounded by hype since his freshman year. Tuitama, now a junior, was forced into a starting role as a freshman, starting five games, which included a 335-yard passing effort in a road win over Oregon State as well as a win over seventh-ranked UCLA.
Tuitama says he’s even related to Tuiasosopo, though he’s not sure of the exact relation.
His sophomore year was plagued by injuries, including multiple concussions, but the junior is now ready to start living up to the potential he showed two years ago.
While adjusting to Arizona’s new spread offense, Tuitama has posted the best numbers of his career, and currently ranks second in the Pac-10 with 286.6 passing yards per game. Through eight games, he has 16 touchdowns and eight interceptions while completing 63.1 percent of his passes.
“I started early as a freshman, and I had some success early,” said Tuitama. “At first people expected me to do great things, but the way we talk about it here is that we don’t move as I move, we all move together. It’s a whole team effort. That’s how it is.”
And so far, the team effort hasn’t been exactly what the Wildcats had hoped for. The spread passing attack installed by first-year offensive coordinator Sonny Dykes, who was previously the co-offensive coordinator at Texas Tech, has improved Arizona’s offense, but not as much as the Wildcats had hoped.
Arizona’s 203 points through eight games is already more than last year’s 12-game total of 199, but the Wildcats have managed only four touchdowns in their past three games. One of the biggest problems for Arizona has been turnovers. The Wildcats are seventh in the conference with a minus three turnover margin, and have turned the ball over 17 times.
“The first year is always the hardest in any system, whether it’s offense, defense, whatever,” Arizona coach Mike Stoops said. “We’re going through some of the growing pains, but I don’t think there’s any question that we’re a much better offensive team than we were a year ago. We just have to continually grow with the system.”
Arizona’s spread attack won’t look much like the spread option Oregon used to score 55 points against Washington last week.
“I wish,” Stoops said, laughing, when asked if the two offenses were similar. “I don’t know that we have that capability to strike like those guys, they seem like they’ve got that thing rolling pretty well right now. We spread it out and throw it.”
And coaches from Arizona and Washington agree the key is the guy doing that throwing.
“I think the strength is him,” Washington coach Tyrone Willingham said. “They count on him being a heck of a player for them.”
Washington hopes to put pressure on Tuitama to keep him from settling into a passing rhythm. The Wildcats are one of the worst teams in the Pac-10 at protecting their quarterback, allowing 19 sacks for 164 yards this season.
“They’ve got a good quarterback, Tuitama, and we’ve got to get after him,” said Washington defensive tackle Jordan Reffett. “Because if he gets some time back there, he can be real dangerous.”
One way the Wildcats might keep the pressure off their quarterback is to run the ball more. While Arizona has been a pass-first team this year, they have shown in some games an ability to run the ball.
Freshman running back Nic Grigsby has been solid in his first year of college football, averaging 80.2 yards per game, including a 186-yard effort against Washington State, and a 126-yard game last week against Stanford.
And considering Washington’s rush defense, which ranks last in the conference by a large margin, there’s a good chance the Wildcats will run more than they have in other games.
“I think from now on out people are going to try to run on us,” Reffett said. “I think it’s a fact of life. If you give up big chunks of yards like we have in the last couple of games, that’s just the way it’s going to work out, and we accept that challenge.”
Run or throw, a guy named Tui will again be the key to an offense’s success at Husky Stadium, and the once-hyped freshman says he is no longer thinking about the pressure, only the task at hand.
“There are definitely times when people expect me to do better than I am, and that’s just the way that people will perceive things,” he said. “I just try to go out there and do my best every outing, but sometimes you just don’t do as good as I would have hoped.
“Now that I’m older, I’m more mature, I’ve been through a little bit more now. I kind of know what to expect. Win or lose, either way, whatever people say about you, you’re still going to have to go out the next week and play a game.”
A talented, developing quarterback named Tui, handling pressure with a mature outlook on the game? Has a familiar ring to it, doesn’t it?
Contact Herald Writer John Boyle at jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on University of Washington sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com /huskiesblog
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