Emerald City Swagger
Fansided

Hau’oli Kikaha Draft By New Orleans Saints At No. 44

By James Silberman

facebooktwitterreddit

The nation’s leading pass-rusher last season, and all-time leading pass-rusher for the Washington Huskies with 36 sacks, including 19 in 2014. Hau’oli Kikaha is headed to New Orleans, where a team in apparently in transition after trading Jimmy Graham to the Seattle Seahawks.

Kikaha will play outside linebacker in the Saints’ 3-4 defense. He and Junior Galette will make up a pretty scary pass-rush off both edges.

He will be sorely missed at the University of Washington. Kikaha was a fantastic player and leader for the team, after coming back from two ACL tears, and changing his last name (it was Hau’oli Jamora prior to 2012). Here is a (very long) list of his accomplishments while playing for the Dawgs from gohuskies.com.

2014 Unanimous First-Team All-America
Polynesian Player of the Year Award FINALIST
Lombardi Award FINALIST
Butkus Award FINALIST
Lott Impact Trophy FINALIST
Ted Hendricks Award FINALIST
Bednarik Award Semi-Finalist


2014 First-Team All-America (AP, AFCA, FWAA, TSN, Walter Camp, ESPN, CBS Sports, scout.com, SB Nation)
2014 Second-Team All-America (USA Today, Sports Illustrated)
2014 CoSIDA Academic All-District VIII
2014 All-Pac-12 First Team
2014 Academic All-Pac-12 First Team

School Records:

Career Sacks: 36.0
Career Tackle-for-Loss Yardage: 275.0

Single-Season Sacks: 19.0 (2014)

Single-Season Tackles For Loss: 25.0 (2014)

Single-Season Tackle-For-Loss Yards: 139 (2014)

Like I said in my post about Danny Shelton, Kikaha is a quality person who be impossible to replace at the University of Washington. Congrats to the Saints for adding a fantastic player to their organization, and congrats to Hau’oli Kikaha on such an exciting day. Best wishes from Seattle wherever you go.

More from Emerald City Swagger

Home/Washington Huskies Football