Washington is off to a 4-0 start and ranked No. 15 in the latest AP poll. And the Huskies are missing one of their best players on defense.

Edefuan Ulofoshio is expected to play this season, coach Kalen DeBoer told reporters on Monday, but not for a while. The junior linebacker is rehabbing a knee injury suffered earlier this year. DeBoer told reporters he thinks Ulofoshio will see the field for the Huskies this season, but likely not until November.

Ulofoshio missed the back half of the 2021 season for Washington with an undisclosed injury. DeBoer announced during a pre-spring press conference earlier this year that Ulofoshio had suffered another injury during winter conditioning that would keep him out to start the season.

“Really expecting him to play at some point this season. That’s certainly the expectation,” DeBoer said on Monday. “I don’t expect it in the next month. I would be hoping after that we could start talking week-to-week, and sometime day-to-day.”

A former walk-on out of Bishop Gorman (Nev.), Ulofoshio jumped into the spotlight as a redshirt freshman in 2019 when he supplied 47 tackles (fifth on the team), 3.5 tackles for loss, three sacks, and a forced fumble. He added 47 more tackles during the COVID-shortened 2020 season. In just four games, the All-Pac-12 Second Team selection also produced four pass breakups, a sack, and a forced fumble. He had 51 tackles last season in six games.

In his absence, UW has gotten strong play from Carson Bruener and the emerging Alphonzo Tuputala.

In other injury news, DeBoer updated the status of defensive backs Jordan Perryman, Mishael Powell, and Asa Turner.

“I think Perryman is really close,” DeBoer said. “He’s the closest out of all of them. Really hopeful and expecting him to be back out there this week. Felt that way even maybe this last week that that could happen. Just getting that volume to where he feels great about being out there. Asa could actually be a possibility this weekend. (Powell) will not.”

UW plays UCLA (4-0, 1-0 Pac-12) on the road this Friday.