After withstanding constant change at UW, it’s finally Carson Bruener’s time
SEATTLE – A few minutes before noon Wednesday, Carson Bruener congregated with his mother (Traci), his grandpa (Bob), his grandma (Laurie) and his little brother (12-year-old Hudson) in the west end zone inside Husky Stadium. His father, former UW tight end Mark Bruener, had attended Carson’s just-concluded practice with the family as well.
To quell any confusion about who the assembled crew belonged to, Laurie sported a blue jean jacket with her last name – Bruener – bedazzled on the back.
This is why Carson Bruener is (still) here.
Because, to be quite clear, he didn’t have to be.
The 6-foot-2, 226-pound linebacker made a verbal commitment to Washington on June 21, 2019. After redshirting in 2020, Bruener was a midseason revelation the following fall – starting the final five games of a 4-8 campaign. In his first career start against Stanford, he amassed 16 tackles with 1.5 sacks and a forced fumble, earning Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week and Freshman of the Week honors along the way. He added nine tackles and a 50-yard interception return against Oregon, 14 tackles against Arizona State and 11 tackles in the Apple Cup, before being named UW’s most outstanding freshman at the program’s postseason banquet.
It appeared Bruener had cemented himself as a defensive mainstay. But life didn’t work that way.
Instead, coach Jimmy Lake was fired and his staff was replaced by Kalen DeBoer and crew, who apparently preferred other options at linebacker. Alphonzo Tuputala and Pittsburgh transfer Cam Bright served as the team’s primary starters in 2022, before Edefuan Ulofoshio returned from injury to star beside Tuputala in 2023.
Meanwhile, Bruener – who successfully ascended the depth chart in 2021 – started a combined one game in the past two seasons.
“It’s been a test, for sure,” Bruener said at the program’s media day preceding preseason camp. “There were a lot of days where I was really frustrated, thinking I should maybe have a bigger role on defense or a few more plays here and there. But I really had to come back to myself and go, ‘Hey, this all happens for a reason. You just have to control what you can control.’
“There’s a lot of things out of my control that I wish I could change, but I wasn’t able to. At the end of the day, we all agreed to come here and play football. We’re not all promised to play. That’s one thing people don’t realize when they commit to a school like UW. It’s like, ‘I’m a five-star, four-star (recruit).’ They think they can come in and play early, but it’s really not like that.
“I got an opportunity to play early, and it humbled me a little bit, going with the ups and downs. But it’s something I wouldn’t change at all. Having the 11-2 Alamo Bowl win, 14-1 national championship appearance, I wouldn’t change any playing time or how it worked out for anything.”
Bruener’s team and family have long been intertwined. So when coach Chris Petersen stepped down before Bruener could sign, he didn’t decommit. When Lake was fired, he didn’t transfer. When a starting spot devolved into spot reps and special-teams snaps, he didn’t opt for a more available path to playing time.
Bruener – whose 86 tackles finished third on the team last fall, despite making just a single start – admitted that “I thought my path would be a lot different than it’s been so far.”
And yet, the path led him here – to an overdue opportunity.
Under new coach Jedd Fisch, defensive coordinator Steve Belichick and position coach Robert Bala, Bruener has been inserted as a senior starter/leader beside Tuputala this year. The Woodinville native and Redmond High School alum also represented the Huskies at Big Ten Media Days in Indianapolis last month.
Given the inconsistent opportunities, Bruener has always produced – compiling 202 tackles, 8.5 tackles for loss, three forced fumbles, two interceptions and 1.5 sacks in 39 career games.
But both he and Bala are betting he’s saved his best for last.
“He’s a guy that wants to learn,” Bala said. “He’s experienced big games, so he understands the standard of how you want to operate. He’s a guy that wants to get better in the film room, get better at his techniques, get better at his fundamentals. He attacks every day. He puts the last day behind him and goes in the very next day and tries to get better and find something to improve on mentally and physically. That’s all I can ask for.
“A great coach once told me, ‘The teacher shows up when the student is willing to learn.’ He comes every single day ready to play.”
(That “great coach,” by the way, was a recent retiree named Nick Saban.)
Perhaps Bruener comes ready to play because he knows who he’s playing for. Or because he understands that these games, plays, opportunities, etc., are far from guaranteed.
“I just know I have to step up my game. I can’t slack. I can’t take a day off,” he said. “I can’t (say), ‘I’m not really feeling it today.’ It doesn’t work like that for me. It could’ve when I was a freshman. You can get away with it when you’re young and maybe not playing. But now especially, with the role I want to fulfill this upcoming season, I’ve got to come in day in and day out 100%.”
The fifth-year senior exists in an environment that’s increasingly unfamiliar. Twenty-one scholarship players from last year’s team departed via the transfer portal, while 22 either graduated, retired or declared for the NFL draft. Amid a new roster, a new coaching staff and a new conference, Carson Bruener is a rare constant, a paradigm of patience in an increasingly impatient industry.
It’s finally his time.
“Even throughout all the change, to me (UW) is still the same,” he said. “I’m still out here. I can still see the ‘W’ at midfield. I still see ‘Huskies’ in the end zone. We’re still going to have 70,000 screaming fans every game. Running out of that tunnel, it doesn’t get old. So I feel like it really hasn’t changed much for me.”
Team and family remain intertwined.