Line up the University of Washington defensive tackles, and Elinneus Davis is the best one.
Derek Colman-Brusa and TI Umu-Cais are the future.
Ta’ita’i Uiagalelei is the past.
Kai McClendon is SEC royalty.
Omar Khan is the strong, silent type.
DeSean Watts is the funny guy.
Somewhere among all of these thick, barrel-chested guys from varying backgrounds — who together might represent the Huskies’ most improved position group in a year’s time — is Ball State transfer Darin Conley.
He’s a 6-foot-3, 290-pounder from Kansas City with one of the most powerful torsos on the roster, someone who came to Seattle to play on a much bigger stage for coach Jason Kaufusi and unleash his inner defensive lineman.
“Foos has the recipe,” Conley said of his position leader. “He knows what he’s doing in how to develop guys.”
While Davis and Colman-Brusa have been the designated starters throughout spring ball and into fall camp leading into the Sept. 6 season opener against Washington State, Conley has rotated in and out of the No. 1 defense with those guys.
He provides a strong push up front, which is hard to ignore. He’s just needed a little refinement in his game, if not more encouragement to make bigger things happen.
“I like how we are changing our mindset from, hey, let’s play defense to actually let’s just attack and almost play offense on defense,” Conley said. “Let’s go get the ball. Let’s go make havoc plays. … As a whole, let’s go make something happen.”
He made the first move by leaving the comfort of his MAC school in Muncie, Indiana, and the Midwest in general for something new and different in the Big Ten and out West.
Besides learning something about his position in more detail, Conley says he’s a nature guy who appreciates the newfound local landscape.
Since arriving this past winter, he and Watts have gone off exploring some of the signts and taking it all in.
“I love seeing the mountain; it’s beautiful and that’s awesome,” he said of Mount Rainier. “I come from where it’s flat.”
Conley has two seasons he can play for the Huskies and live in the shadow of the mountain, and he’s greatly encouraged by what he knows now and where his game his headed.
Kaufusi has made him get his hips right and encouraged him to defend his space rather than simply occupy it.
“The way he’s developed me from spring to now, I couldn’t have got that somewhere else,” he said.
The the Huskies, the knowledge and the mountain in the distance, all of it has Conley readily motivated.
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