Ex-Husky LB Tafisi Announces He'll Pursue an NFL Career

Originally posted on Washington Huskies on SI
By Dan Raley | Last updated Jan 7, 2024 5:00 PM ET

MJ Tafisi, a hard-nosed linebacker, forever will be known at the University of Washington as the guy show saw everything crumbling all around him and walked away in the middle of a season.

Within 48 hours of coach Jimmy Lake drawing a suspension that turned into a firing, the 6-foot, 250-pound Tafisi quit the Huskies and went home. Three games remained in the 2021 season.

He went back to his native Utah, joined the Utah State football team, became its best player and will try to do what Bobby Wagner did for this football program a dozen years ago.

Over the weekend, with his six years of eligibility used up, Tafisi thanked the Aggies and Huskies for preparing him as a player and announced he would be pursuing an NFL career.

Wagner was a Utah State linebacker who became a 2012 first-round draft pick for the Seattle Seahawks and is still playing in town.

Whether or not Tafisi becomes a high draft pick, he turned out to become a fairly decent college player. He was named as a first-team All-Mountain West selection following this season and was an honorable-mention pick last year.

For a pair of 6-7 Aggies teams, he piled up 156 tackles, including 87 this past season, and 16.5 tackles for loss, 1 sack, 3 pass break-ups and 2 forced fumbles.

He spent four seasons and played 22 games at the UW before his abrupt departure, which seemingly also was fueled by the fact he didn't play against Oregon on Lake's fateful day that involved the coach shoving one of the other Husky football players, another linebacker, on national TV.

In 2019, Tafisi was involved in such a ferocious hit at Arizona he had to be removed from the field strapped to a cart and taken to a hospital. He missed several games because of that mishap.

This article first appeared on Washington Huskies on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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