​The Washington Huskies football team is in its first game week of the 2026-27 season and will kick off a year ripe with expectations in the Apple Cup against the Washington State Cougars at 1 p.m. PT on Sunday at Husky Stadium in Seattle.The Huskies released their depth chart for the game against the Cougars on Monday. On the offensive side of the ball, the starters lined up with earlier projections made on Huskies Roundtable in an article Monday morning.The depth chart included starters on the defensive side of the ball, as well.Here’s an overview of Washington’s projected starters for the Apple Cup:Edge rusher: Jacob Lane, fourth-yearLane will enter this season as the premier edge rusher on the Huskies defensive line following a solid season 2025.The Puyallup, Wash., native played in all 13 games last season and finished the season with 41 total tackles (23 solo), including 8.5 tackles for loss and four sacks and two passes defended.Jacob Lane gets to the QBpic.twitter.com/ZfSGCbZ2kD— Washington Football (@UW_Football) September 27, 2025Interior defensive line: Elinneus Davis, fourth-yearDavis is another veteran player who played in all 13 games for UW last season. He’s coming off an incredible offseason where he was among the best performers for the team in spring and fall practice.Last season, Davis had 29 total tackles (18 solo), including a half-tackle for loss and a half-sack and two passes defended.Interior defensive line: Derek Colman-Brusa, first-yearWashington will have several first-year players either start or receive significant reps this season, and Colman-Brusa will be one of the beneficiaries of that.Colman-Brusa, a four-star recruit in the Class of 2026, has received first team reps since the start of spring practice and has been tested on the interior, constantly lining up against 2025 True Freshman All-American John Mills.Edge rusher: Ramzak Fruean, first-yearFruean is another first-year player set to start on the defensive line this upcoming season.The four-star ’26 recruit, unlike Colman-Brusa and fellow first-year and starting left tackle Kodi Greene, started running with the backups and was originally anticipated to be an outside linebacker.Fruean, who often outpaces his fellow linemen (offensive and defensive) in conditioning, was moved to edge rusher later in the spring and ended getting reps with the first team and began training camp as a starter.Linebacker: Zaydrius Rainey-Sale, second-year OR Xe’ree Alexander, fourth-yearThere are two positions on defense that don’t have a clear-cut starter for Sunday, one of them being one of the two linebacker spots in defensive coordinator Ryan Walters’ base defense.Rainey-Sale, who missed most of last season with an injury, has been healthy the majority of the offseason and has added size in addition to his top-end speed.Xe’ree Alexander has been half-speed for the final practices of training camp and has donned a gold shirt for those sessions, but is coming off a solid ending