SEATTLE — Tyrone Willingham joked during fall camp that offensive and defensive coaches were fighting for the services of freshman Johri Fogerson.
The defense, it turns out, won that fight.
After spending his first four weeks at Washington as a tailback, Fogerson was called into Willingham’s office Tuesday and asked to move to safety.
“I got the call in from coach Willingham, and he said, ‘We want you to play safety,’ so I made the move,” said Fogerson, the Associated Press state player of the year as a senior running back and safety at Seattle’s O’Dea High School. “I’m excited. I really don’t have a preference, so now I’m just getting another chance to play.”
Willingham said the move was made to get Fogerson on the field sooner rather than later.
“Obviously Johri is a very talented athlete, and he continues to show himself that way,” he said. “One of the things we like to do if possible is get our best athletes on the field at some point, and the secondary may afford him that opportunity a little sooner than the running back position. So we made an adjustment with him yesterday, worked him in with our defense, he’s started to pick up and learn some things and do some service team work to kind of get his feet up under him, and we’ll see how far that allows him to advance.”
Despite being new to the position, at least at the college level, Fogerson thinks he can make the adjustment quickly enough to get onto the field this season, perhaps even as soon as this weekend when the Huskies play Brigham Young.
“Oh yeah, I got the stuff down for the game plan,” Fogerson said when asked if he could be ready to play this week. “I’m just picking up the basics right now out of our own playbook. That’s where I am now.”
Fogerson said he has no problem making the move, adding that he feels he is a natural fit on offense and defense.
“I’m just going wherever they need help,” he said. “Whatever it takes to win, that’s what I’m trying to do. Making this move, if this was the best thing for the team, that’s what they have to do. I’m excited about it though.”
One busy walk-on: Washington’s season started with Tripper Johnson on the field, back deep as one of the Huskies’ two kick returners. And after the offense had to punt the ball away, Johnson was back on the field, a starting safety as the Huskies opened the game with five defensive backs on the field.
The rest of the night, Johnson, a 26-year-old walk-on whose last football game was nine years ago when he was a senior in high school, spent a lot more time on the field than he figured to heading into the game.
“I did play more than I thought I was going to,” said Johnson, who played eight seasons of minor league baseball before enrolling at Washington. “I did play in the three-safety look quite a bit there in the first half. Originally I thought we were going to go with the four down linemen look and that first half I was pretty surprised I ended up playing as much as I did.”
Johnson equated getting used to game speed to the first week of spring training, when it looks like all the pitchers are throwing “110 miles per hour.”
“It’s one of those things that you can emulate in practice as much as you can and try to get the speed down, but it’s nothing like game speed,” he said. “And being away from the game for some time, it was one of those things I expected: I knew it was going to be fast, I knew these guys were going to be quick. It’s one of those things I need to get used to, and it took me a quarter to get used to that, and I know it’s going to take some time to get used to that.”
One old sophomore: Speaking of Johnson, he has been told by Willingham that he has been given a third year of eligibility. While playing baseball, Johnson took some online courses, which caused him to come to Washington as a junior. He plans to graduate in the spring of 2010 not long after his 28th birthday, but may take graduate courses to play the 2010 season.
“We’ll see where I am at that point in my life, but I would love to play a third year,” he said. “It’s also a one of those things, at my age we’ll see where I am in my life and see where it goes.”
Gottlieb likely to play Saturday: Senior tight end Michael Gottlieb is again at the top of the depth chart at that position, and it appears he may play this week after missing the Oregon game with a hamstring injury.
“Based on [Tuesday] I would say yes,” Willingham said when asked if Gottlieb will be able to play. “But as we go through the week, we’ll see exactly what the progress is and well he’s able to perform.”
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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