In college football, the standards for a defensive tackle are strength, speed and furniture moving.

When appliances or couches need to be moved, Dion Washington Jr. said, “my parents call me. Now that they know I’m strong enough, I’m the first they call. It’s not my dad anymore.”

Washington, who transferred from Nevada to Hawaii this month, is expected to use his power to move aside offensive linemen to fill run gaps, storm the backfield or, at the least, reset the line of scrimmage.

“He’s a tremendous athlete,” UH head coach Timmy Chang said of Washington. “He’s a special athlete. We’re lucky to have him. We expect him to be good. In the three weeks he’s been here, he’s been special for us.”

In the Warriors’ four-man defensive front, Washington can play the left or right tackle. At 6 feet 2 and 290 pounds, Washington is capable of bench pressing 450 pounds, back squatting 655 pounds, and covering 100 meters in 11.5 seconds. Chang also said Washington has a passion for the sport.

When he was 6, Washington began showing a strong interest in sports. “My grandma was really against me playing football,” he said, “while my mom and dad were like, ‘if he’s going to play football, let’s get him into it early.’”

In following in the cleat-steps of his namesake father, a fourth-round MLB draft selection in 1997 who played five seasons in the New York Yankees’ organization, Washington also played baseball. In high school, Washington was asked by his father if he still wanted to play both sports. “I was like, ‘no, I just want to focus on football,’” Washington recalled. “Ever since then, it was the best decision I ever made. It got me here. It made me a successful football player on the field.”

Washington also competed in wrestling for Las Vegas’ Shadow Ridge High. Weighing 235 pounds while wrestling in the 285-pound division, Washington placed second in the regionals in 2020.

“I got lucky because I was 50 pounds under the weight limit,” Washington said of avoiding extreme diet measures. “I never had to worry about losing weight.”

He also experienced the cross-training benefits. “Wrestling is one of the greatest sports a defensive lineman could ever play,” he said. “Learning leverage, how to use your hands and legs, doing the man on man. It’s just you out there. You build that sense of independence going out there knowing that what happens is going to be your responsibility.”

Chang, who was on Nevada’s coaching staff in 2021, offered a Wolf Pack scholarship to Washington as a Shadow Ridge senior. In December, after Nevada head coach Ken Wilson was fired following two disastrous seasons, Washington entered the transfer portal.

“I wanted a change of landscape,” he said. “I felt the program wasn’t going in the direction I necessarily wanted to go in. I still have love for the guys over there. Some of my closest friends are over there. But I knew for me, and my career being able to take off, I felt I wanted to go to a program that was on the way up and the guys around me had the same goals. I’m blessed to be here.”

Washington said he embraced the culture Chang was establishing at UH. “I knew what he was about,” Washington said. “Ever since he offered me that scholarship out of high school, I’ve been really close to him. Just watching the Hawaii program the past two years — Coach Chang, Coach Sheff — I knew they had a really good thing going.”

UH special teams coach Thomas Sheffield joined Chang in the move from Nevada to Manoa in 2022. “Those relationships are huge,” Sheffield said. “When you (recruit) in the portal, you want to make sure you have a relationship with the kids you’re bringing, the risk-versus-reward type of deal. We knew who he was coming into it, and it was a big reason why we recruited him. We knew he would fit not just from a physical standpoint, but a character standpoint as well.”