In the middle of a team huddle, one of Washington’s coaches yelled, “that’s your brother!” after a small scuffle broke out.  It was one of many dust ups in UW’s 3rd and final practice before heading out on Spring Break.

Receivers coach JaMarcus established a new brand with the Washington receivers last season, calling his guys “takers”.  That swagger has been assumed by the entire defense.  An extra bump here, a late shove there, it’s all about Washington’s defense regaining a mental edge after a year taking its lumps.

“Edefuan Ulofoshio is running the show again.  Maybe not exactly as the quarterback of the defense, but rediscovered his swagger and it’s becoming infectious,” said RealDawg’s Warren Mainard.

His presence seems to have given the defense an identity it was missing for much of last year.  He’s always played with a walk-on’s attitude of acting like he’s trying to earn a scholarship on each play.  Along the way, as the defense is now trying to match the receivers, tight ends, and running backs, the product has been a skirmish here and there.

“I don’t really like them,” Washington coach Kalen DeBoer said after practice.  “I mean you like the intensity, that probably leads to it.”

“You’re going to have some tense moments in the fall, times when adversity comes your way, you gotta trust and believe in a team, and the most important thing is the team.  That talking is fun, right, talking amongst guys in practice, and just having a good time that way, competing,” DeBoer continued.  But there’s a line you gotta make sure you don’t cross to where you lose trust (of your teammate) and all the sudden it becomes something more to where, ‘is this guy going to hit me when I come across the middle?”

The hit didn’t happen in practice but the time seemed to be right for ending practice.

“We got the reps in we needed for practice,” DeBoer said abruptly halting the practice.  “Here’s a great growth moment for our football team.”

When practice was called it was offensive lineman Julius Beulow who was unhappy with something that happened on the defensive side of the ball.  At that point, tempers flared but nothing more than a bit of yelling and shoving.

It showed that the defense has a bad attitude–in a good way.  They’ve managed to push back against an offense that had its way against a lot of teams.  At various points throughout practice, a small scuffle broke out.

After the team meeting, coach Shepard had a slightly different take than DeBoer, “we need a little edge like that… yeah, I like it.”

The team will now take 24 days to cool off before beginning fully padded practices on April 3rd.