UW Huskies linebacker Carson Bruener is back, looking to build on his breakout season
Carson Bruener made a memorable impact in his first start for the Washington Huskies last fall.
The Huskies were playing on the road at Stanford, looking to end a drought in that stadium that spanned more than a decade.
Bruener’s breakout performance — he led UW’s defense with a career-high 15 tackles, his first career sack and a forced fumble — was key in lifting the Huskies to a win that night and later earned Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week and Freshman of the Week honors.
He remained in a starting role the rest of the way. In his first season playing after redshirting the four-game 2020 season, Bruener started each of the program’s final five games at inside linebacker last season opposite Jackson Sirmon.
The next week, when UW hosted rival Oregon, Bruener intercepted Anthony Brown on the Ducks’ opening drive and returned it 50 yards to set up an early UW touchdown.
He led the Huskies with double-digit tackles again against Arizona State and in the Apple Cup, playing significant snaps and gaining confidence each passing week.
“It definitely helped coming into this year, because obviously I was able to get some reps and get some experience,” Bruener said Tuesday afternoon, following the program’s 13th practice of the spring.
Bruener’s first start against Stanford turned out to be UW’s final victory in a frustrating 4-8 season, but the former Redmond High School standout’s performance in his second year with the program was a highlight for the Huskies.
While Sirmon — who has since transferred to Cal — led the Huskies in tackles last season with 92 in 12 games, Bruener wasn’t far behind, collecting 70 in 11 appearances.
He added 2-1/2 tackles for losses, 1-1/2 sacks, the one interception, two quarterback hurries and two forced fumbles and played 366 defensive snaps, per Pro Football Focus.
Bruener will look to build on that impressive season as a sophomore this season and again is ready to work to earn starting reps with a new coaching staff in place.
“It just gives me another challenge,” he said.
Bruener is one of six scholarship players in the Huskies linebackers room this spring, along with three more returners in junior Edefuan Ulofoshio and sophomores Daniel Heimuli and Alphonzo Tuputala, and two transfer additions in graduate student Cam Bright and junior Demario King.
Ulofoshio has played in 26 games (12 starts) the past four seasons and opened 2021 as the starter opposite Sirmon. He added 51 tackles, including 2-1/2 for losses, in six games last fall before missing the rest of the season with an injury.
He has been sidelined by an injury again this spring and is expected to miss some time in the fall, though his presence in meetings and practices has made an important impact.
“It’s almost like having an extra coach out here,” Bruener said. “Which has been a huge help, because obviously he has the knowledge that I’m trying to get to … so he’s definitely helped me with some things off the field, on some suggestions on things I should be doing, as well as going over tape.”
Bright, who joins UW this spring after five seasons at Pittsburgh, also brings experience to a young linebackers group. He enters his sixth season with 182 career tackles, including 20-1/2 for losses and nine sacks and helped Pitt to an ACC championship last fall.
“Obviously he’s in his sixth year, so he has that veteran status,” Bruener said. “So, it helps bring in that leadership-type role for us. … We don’t have a lot of older guys. Our team is pretty young, just in general.
“So him coming in with just the talent that he has, but also the knowledge he has of the sport of football, and just learning our defense already as fast as he has and helping us out has been a huge help.”
Heimuli also returns to the Huskies’ linebackers room after appearing in nine games (two starts) and collecting 14 tackles last season, while Tuputala, a Federal Way product, returned from injury late in the season to finish with six tackles in five games.
King joins UW after two seasons at Cerritos (Norwalk, Calif.) College where he tallied 96 tackles in 22 games.
With one more practice and the annual spring preview game remaining before camp wraps up this weekend, Bruener has seen the Huskies as a group and a defense make strides.
“The trust level that we have already built with these coaches, with the players that we have here, it’s I think excelled way more and way faster than a lot of us could have expected,” he said.
“Just kind of learning the playbook, developing the playbook — it’s not just learning new plays and executing them, it’s now executing them and then using those plays to then game plan about certain scenarios. So, I feel like we’re already at that phase, which I feel like is pretty good for being just in spring learning all of this.”
While the defense will have to replace some key contributors from last fall — including a pair of potential early-round NFL Draft picks — Bruener believes the group has the pieces to be productive this season.
“We have the talent here, and I feel like we’re all just ready to show everyone,” he said.
This story was originally published April 27, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
