The two position groups (and their coaches) maintain a belief of improvement through competition.
SEATTLE — The Washington Huskies football team is set to begin fall training camp this week with a relatively clean bill of health compared to the spring and last season.
With the exception of third-year running back Jordan Washington and seventh-year safety C.J. Christian, every player on the team is expected to either be a full go or will get healthy at some point in camp.
This will help the Huskies sort through several of the positions that are still without a clear starter or front-runner ahead of the team's season-opener in the Apple Cup against the Washington State Cougars, which is scheduled for 1 p.m. PT on Sept. 6 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.
One of the several positions Washington still needs to iron out is wide receiver. Several of the likely candidates to earn starting reps missed portions or the entirety of spring ball with respective injuries.
Luckily for those wide receivers, the Huskies are a program that thrives and preaches getting better with competition, from the players to the coaches. And the wideouts and their position coach, Kevin Cummings, have great competitors to go against on the other side of the ball.
Unlike the wide receivers, the starting outside cornerback spots have two clear starters: second-year Dylan Robinson and fourth-year Emmanuel Karnley. The defense will also figure out the depth at the nickelback/star position, which third-year defensive back Rahshawn Clark (who missed all of spring) is expected to be the front runner for.
Those combination of players is headed by secondaries coach John Richardson.
The cornerbacks and wide receivers, whether it was one-on-ones, seven-on-seven or 11-on-11 drills, had some of the most competitive reps in spring practice. Fourth-year wide receiver Rashid Williams and Karnley's respective battles particularly stood out.
Cummings and Richardson are just as involved as they can be without putting pads on themselves, and continue to preach the competitive nature of the two groups' reps.
"I think that sometimes as coaches, for us, we still have that competitive fire in us, too," Richardson said at a news conference Tuesday at Husky Stadium in Seattle. "We might be older. Can't run as fast or walk as fast, but we're definitely competitive. When we're able to show that competitive nature, it allows the players to be in their natural nature. ... How can you create the fire that's ready for game day if you don't create the fire every day in practice. We intensify things quite a bit, me and coach Cummings.
" ... But we also have a great relationship with both position groups. They know where it comes from and what we're trying to get out of them. ... The fact that they love each other more than anything allows them to keep competing."
With Robinson, Karnley, Clark and others testing the potential starters at wide receiver, whoever gets the starting nod against the Cougars will be tested and ready for it.
