Fabiculanan Steps Up in Place of Turner Against Tulsa

Safety Kamren Fabiculanan ended a run of three consecutive seasons without a University of Washington defensive back recording an interception in back-to-back games on Saturday against Tulsa.

After collecting his first career interception in the season opener against Boise State, Fabiculanan went up high in the corner of the end zone with junior cornerback Jabbar Muhammad alongside him and came down with his second pick with 8:37 left in the second quarter against the Golden Hurricane.

With his second interception, Fabiculanan is the first Washington defender to provide an interception in consecutive games since cornerback Elijah Molden did this in the final two games of the 2019 season against Washington State and Boise State.

“It means a lot carrying on that tradition,” Fabiculanan said after UW’s 43-10 victory over Tulsa.

The 6-foot-1, 196-pound junior from Camarillo, California, replaced senior Asa Turner, who left the game with an injury after logging a tackle on the opening drive of the game and didn't come back.

Fabiculanan's interception in the first half was the only turnover forced by the UW defense. Before his pick, he nearly had an interception five plays prior on the same drive before the ball ultimately fell in complete. Sophomore cornerback Elijah Jackson and Fabiculanan both went for the pass, though neither were able to get control of it.

“He’s a guy that is very knowledgeable [and] understands the defense inside and out,” UW coach Kalen DeBoer said of Fabiculanan.

Before Fabiculanan and Turner became teammates at Washington, they had talked about the idea of playing together in Montlake.

Both came to UW as part of the 2019 recruiting class with Fabiculanan making his commitment in March the year before, four months before Turner chose the Huskies. 

A unique text message from Turner to Fabiculanan would ultimately lead to the pair suiting up together for going on five years now. They had a special cultural bond for teaming up, with Turner not so obviously having some Filipino ancestry whereas his fellow safety did.

“It’s so funny,” Fabiculanan said. “I was committed back in 2018 of my junior year of high school. He texted me, ‘You want to be the first two Filipino safeties at UW?’ I was like, 'Let’s do it.' "

Once they arrived on campus it became a constant competition to see who was the better safety.

“Ever since then, when we came up on campus our freshman year, we went through summer school together, played the same position in the same DB room and we were just challenging each other," Fabiculanan said. "We were being competitive with each other of who’s going to be the smartest? Who’s going to be the best tackler?

“[We were] just always challenging each other. That’s what I love about us.”

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