Turner, Last of the Injured UW Starters, Might Be Available for Ducks

For the University of Washington football team, apparently it could be all hands on deck for Friday's Pac-12 championship game against Oregon in Las Vegas.

The availability of senior free safety Asa Turner, the last missing piece among this season's original Husky starters, remains day-to-day while coming off a series of injuries, according to the coaching staff, but he has been back practicing this week.

Turner, a 25-game starter in his career, has missed the previous five games after earlier sitting out three outings while dealing with multiple hand injuries, basically gutting his supposedly final season.

At the beginning of the fall camp, Turner insisted this would be his last of four seasons for the Huskies, even though he has a redshirt year and possibly a COVID season extension available to him. 

Turner might find it necessary to play another season to make him NFL draftable and co-defensive coordinator William Inge acknowledged the possibility exists that the safety has options to use.

"If may be in his court what he wants to do," Inge said. 

A starter for the first two games while wearing a club on his hand, Turner got hurt against Tulsa on the first series and went out for nearly a month.

Returning for the first Oregon game as a reserve safety, Turner played a big role, collecting 7 tackles in the UW's 36-33 victory in mid-October at Husky Stadium. 

He started the following week against Arizona State, picked up 5 tackles in the 15-7 win, but got hurt again and hasn't played since. He later would post on social media how he underwent surgery. 

Last Saturday, Turner was in street clothes when he ran out of the tunnel and was honored as a departing senior, with his Husky future still unknown.