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When he's done with it all, Zion Tupuola-Fetui is a University of Washington football player the fans won't soon forget. Dominant. Hard luck. Personable. Entertaining. Emotional. All of this wrapped into one. Everything out in the open.
The player popularly known as ZTF emerges from an ultra sad week in his life in which he had to gather the inner strength to somehow share in a 52-42 victory over USC in Los Angeles seven days after his father died and come up with big plays to honor the man.
"Football was our pastime," Tupuola-Fetui said. "I always felt I was really on that journey to repay him at some point for everything he did."
On Saturday, ZTF continues on his college football quest, still a little raw from his personal affairs, but always resilient, when his fifth-ranked UW team (9-0 overall, 6-0 Pac-12) hosts the No. 13 Utah Utes (7-2, 4-2) at Husky Stadium.
He and his teammates haven't faced Utah since the 2020 COVID season. For that matter, ZTF hasn't played a better game than the individual effort he supplied against the Utes three years ago in a wild 24-21 victory after trailing 21-0 at halftime.
Tupuola-Fetui finished with 3 sacks among 6 tackles and it should have been 4 quarterback drops, with the latter negated by a questionable roughing-the-passer penalty. He also suppled a forced fumble and a fumble return for 29 yards.
The game was played in an empty stadium at night because of the pandemic. Everything outside of the football between the lines was artificial and antiseptic.
"It was us against the world," ZTF said. "We were only able to associate with each other. Pumped-in crowd noise. Cardboard cut-outs. That's all we had. We felt Husky Nation cheering from home. It was a surreal game."
Tupuola-Fetui provided a strip sack on Utah's first series, when he broke through to manhandle quarterback Jake Bentley for a 9-yard loss and separated him from the football, which Husky linebacker Jackson Sirmon recovered.
In the second quarter, ZTF got his hands on Bentley again for an 8-yard loss at midfield, but the officiating crew waved off the play, deeming the UW edge rusher had acted a bit too aggressively.
"I remember the flag," he said. "It wasn't roughing-the-passer, but that's fine."
Two plays into the fourth quarter, Utah had the ball first-and-10 at the UW 12 and still held a 21-17 advantage when Husky cornerback Kyler Gordon forced Utes running back Ty Jordan to fumble. ZTF scooped up the ball and ran 29 yards to the 40 before he was forced out of bounds.
More heroics were on the way. With the UW still behind by four and running out of time, ZTF crashed through on consecutive plays to sack Bentley each time and force a Utah punt with just four and a half minutes left in the game. That led to a game-winning, 18-yard touchdown pass from Dylan Morris to tight end Cade Otton with 36 seconds left to play.
"I'm very fond of that memory," ZTF said. "Elijah Molden was like our defensive leader at that time and he came to me on our last defensive play and said, 'Sack him again.' I kind of like did it for him."
That's who Zion Tupuola-Fetui is, playing for Molden, playing for his dad, often playing football for everyone except himself.
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