Alphonzo Tuputala, as much as anyone, needed to return as a University of Washington football player and keep things on the upswing.
With his team undergoing a significant rebuild following a coaching change after a national runner-up finish, the Huskies had to have a new leader emerge, preferably someone who knows how to handle adversity.
Tuputala, who reaffirmed in a social-media posting this week he’ll back for a sixth season, qualifies as overly resilient on multiple fronts.
He showed up in 2019 as the least heralded of four new Husky linebackers — the others were Miki Ah You, Josh Calvert and Daniel Heimuli — and he turned out to be the best one.
Ready to make a big move for playing time in 2021, Tuputala tore an Achilles tendon during spring practice at the same time that teammate Zion Tupuola-Fetui ripped one and, unlike his more publicized teammate, almost no one knew what happened to Tuputala.
While installing Tuputala as a first-time starter in 2022, Kalen DeBoer’s coaching staff continued to bring in veteran linebackers to try and unseat him, among them Pittsburgh’s Cam Bright, UAB’s Kris Moll and USC’s Ralen Goforth, and he kept his job.