Getting Locked in

• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Jul 16, 2009 - Page: 1C

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After 11 months of sitting and watching, Washington quarterback Jake Locker is bound to be anxious to get back on the football field no matter who the opponent is.

That he makes his return from a nasty thumb injury against potentially one of the more ferocious defenses in the country is no deterrent.

“Whenever I think about getting on the field against a team like LSU, I get real excited,” said Locker, the junior quarterback at Washington. The Huskies and Tigers launch the 2009 season Sept. 5 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

“One of the coolest things about playing at this level is the chances when you get to play teams like LSU year after year. For me to come back and play for the first time in almost a year makes it that much better for me.”

Locker is the poster boy for an era of new hope at UW, although he is still mending from an injury that threatened his career or at least his future as a quarterback.

In the fourth game of the 2008 campaign, Locker delivered a downfield block on a running play against Stanford and when he got back to the huddle “something didn’t feel right.”

Locker tried to throw the ball on the next play and the ball wobbled out of his hand and fell 15 yards downfield.

“That told me something was hurt pretty bad,” Locker said.

It was.

Locker’s thumb was shattered into 10 pieces and needed reconstructive surgery involving pins and other hardware. His season was over, although he told media covering UW that he was interested in playing safety while the injury healed.

Following a freshman season when he burst onto the national scene with 2,062 passing yards and 986 rushing yards, Locker was forced into a spectator role before his sophomore season had even got warmed up.

“It was a chance to step back and look at our team and what we needed to do to improve,” Locker said. “It helped me see what I needed to do as a leader. It taught me have to make best out of every situation.”

That skill should come in handy this fall.