SEATTLE — Even though he tried to wipe past performance from the record when he arrived at Washington in December 2008, coach Steve Sarkisian still assessed his new players pretty early after taking over the Huskies.
His initial impression of wide receiver Jermaine Kearse: nice at catching the ball, smart player and that’s about it.
“I didn’t realize he had as much versatility as he really has in his game,” Sarkisian said.
NEXT GAME
Nebraska at Washington, 12:30 p.m. Saturday.
TV: Channel 2.
Online: gohuskies.com
Want to know how versatile Kearse is? Ask Syracuse, who is still smarting from Kearse’s nine catches for 179 yards and three touchdowns in the Huskies 41-20 win last Saturday. Most of those yards came after the catch, including short passes Kearse turned into touchdowns of 57 and 28 yards.
Now comes an even bigger challenge for the junior receiver, with No. 8 Nebraska and it’s swarming, aggressive secondary coming to Husky Stadium on Saturday. Kearse may find himself matched up regularly with Nebraska cornerback Prince Amukamara, considered one of the top defensive backs in the country.
“Our receiving corps we’re going to come out real hard. We’re going to come out and practice hard this week and prepare the best we can,” Kearse said. “Like I said, they’re one of the top secondaries in the nation. It’s going to be a challenge for our group.”
In less than a year, Kearse has emerged from a backup with some promise into one of the top receivers on the West Coast. More importantly for Washington, Kearse is the favorite target for quarterback Jake Locker.
After two games, Kearse is third in the country in receiving yards and the top receiver not located in the state of North Carolina. Only Jheranie Boyd of North Carolina and Conner Veron of Duke are ahead of Kearse in yards per game. Dating to last season, the junior from Lakewood is working on a streak of four 100-yard receiving efforts in his last six games.
It’s massive growth for a receiver who a year ago wasn’t a starter at the beginning of the season.
Kearse’s emergence began when the Huskies upset then No. 3 Southern California at home. After catching just five passes in Washington’s first two games, Kearse came up with two critical grabs on Washington’s final drive in its 16-13 upset.
But ask Kearse when he thinks coaches started taking notice of what he could do and he mentions Stanford’s 34-14 rout of the Huskies. Kearse caught three balls for 54 yards and a touchdown.
“I got some more playing time and the opportunities I got I tried and go out there and make the best of them. I tried to just go make my plays I knew I could make,” Kearse said. “We didn’t play that well. I felt like that was just the time in adversity I could come up and step up and make plays to help the team get where we need to be.”
Kearse only took off from there. He finished last season with 866 yards receiving, the seventh highest total in school history. His eight TDs last year was sixth best. The totals were the best for any Washington receiver since Reggie Williams posted three straight 1,000-yard receiving seasons between 2001-03.
The carry-over into 2010 wasn’t quite as smooth. Kearse dropped a couple of passes in the season-opening loss against BYU, then bounced back with the best day of his career.
“I said, ‘Don’t try too hard.’ Sometimes when a guy doesn’t have the best game of his career — you know, he struggles a little bit — he can come out and try too hard,” Sarkisian said. “Jermaine’s a great football player. He’s very smart, we’re able to play him all over the field and line him up at different positions. We were going to get him the ball and get him going. I just said, ‘Just let the game come to you; you’re going to get your opportunities.’ And I thought he did that.”
Kearse’s numbers last Saturday also helped Locker return to the fringes of the early Heisman Trophy talk. Kearse caught a short throw into the flat on the first play of the second half and turned it into a 57-yard TD. Later in the third, Kearse caught a wide receiver screen and darted 28 yards for his third touchdown.
“I think Jermaine took it upon himself to really come out and be dominant … and he was. It was really, really fun to watch,” Locker said.
