As the final seconds of Washington’s 70-21 blowout of rival Oregon ticked away, a few Huskies teammates gathered near a water cooler.
PSALM WOOCHING
>> School: Washington
>> Class: Senior
>> Height: 6 feet 4
>> Weight: 231 pounds
>> High school: Kealakehe (2012)
CAREER STATISTICS
YEAR
GP
UA
A
TOT
SK-YDS
TFL-YDS
PD
FF
FR
2013
11
0
1
1
0-0
0-0
0
0
0
2014
8
2
0
2
0-0
0-0
0
0
0
2015
13
10
13
23
2-12
4.5-19
1
0
1
2016
6
13
6
19
4.5-32
4.5-32
0
1
1
TOT.
38
25
20
45
6.5-44
9-51
1
1
2
Psalm Wooching, a fifth-year senior from Kealakehe, played point for the group that hoped to drench coach Chris Petersen in celebration.
As Wooching neared the third-year Huskies head coach, Petersen turned toward the outside linebacker and shot Wooching a look that came with a warning.
“He said, ‘None of that, none of that,’” Wooching said. “I was just distracting him, but I guess a couple of guys chickened out and left me hanging.”
It’s understandable not everyone on the Huskies’ roster would partake in such an activity.
The former Boise State head coach is rarely seen smiling on the sidelines, even as his Huskies are 6-0, ranked fifth in the country, and coming off back-to-back wins over Stanford and Oregon by a combined score of 114-27.
Petersen can seem like a tyrant on the outside. He closed off all media availability to players for the entire week leading up to the Oregon game. He’s mastered the ability to talk for five minutes and say nothing at the same time.
Inside the locker room, Wooching likens Petersen to “a dad away from home.”
“He’s that big role model kind of guy you can always run to and ask for help,” Wooching said. “He’ll be there for you whether it’s football, school, whatever, but he also expects a lot out of you.”
What matters is results and Petersen seems on the way to building a program at UW similar to the one at Boise State, where he finished 92-12 as head coach.
He won five bowl games, and two Fiesta Bowls, before resigning prior to the 2013 Hawaii Bowl to accept the job at Washington vacated by Steve Sarkisian, who left to take the USC job.
The Huskies haven’t been relevant nationally since beating Drew Brees and Purdue in the 2000 Rose Bowl, finishing third in the rankings.
That changed two weeks ago when on Friday night in primetime, the Huskies routed Stanford 44-6.
It was a coming-out party not only for the Huskies program, but for Wooching as well.
The 6-foot-4, 231-pound outside linebacker had six tackles and three of Washington’s eight sacks with a forced fumble. He won the Walter Camp national player of the week award despite missing his one chance to catch a touchdown on offense.
UW used Wooching, who played fullback under Sarkisian, for one play in the second quarter. It was a play-action pass near the goal line with Wooching lined up at fullback. He went out in the flat for a pass but the ball went off his fingertips. It was a catchable ball but not an easy one, which begged the question, was it the receiver’s fault or a poor throw?
“Gotta catch that,” Wooching said. “No way I’m going to blame our quarterback.”
In six games, Wooching already has matched his career total from the previous three years with 41⁄2 sacks.
He plays the same position that current New Orleans Saints and ex-Huskies linebacker Hau’oli Kikaha, a Kahuku alum, played from 2010 to ’14.
Kikaha, who was a second-round pick of the Saints in 2015, allowed Wooching to stay at his house during the summer after Wooching graduated from Kealakehe.
He learned the position from Kikaha and then last year from Travis Feeney, who was a sixth-round pick, before taking over as the full-time starter this year.
“They’ve helped tremendously,” Wooching said. “Being the second guy behind Hau’oli and learning from him and seeing the tenacity and motor that he played with and then being behind Travis and learning from him has been a great learning experience. Now it’s my turn to step up and hopefully pass down what I’ve learned to the younger guys.”
One thing Wooching is definitely responsible for passing on to other players is his warrior face paint that usually covers his entire sweaty face by the end of a game.
Even as a freshman when he didn’t play, he would lather himself up in face paint that made him stand out on the sidelines.
More of his teammates have gotten into it this year and even people on Facebook and Instagram ask him about his face paint.
“I’ve been doing it since I first came here and now I have kids asking me how I do my face paint because they want to do it,” Wooching said. “So yeah, I guess I’m starting a little trend that I brought back from home.”