SEATTLE -- As a punishment, Washington coach Rick Neuheisel held standout tight end Jerramy Stevens out of the starting lineup in the No. 15 Huskies' victory over No. 11 Michigan on Saturday.

Stevens started the second half and immediately caught a 19-yard pass from Cody Pickett for a third-down conversion. He finished with two catches for 24 yards in Washington's season-opening 23-18 win. Junior Kevin Ware started in Stevens' place.

Neuheisel had said he would discipline the 6-foot-7, 260-pound junior for an offseason accident in which police say Stevens ran his truck into a retirement center and fled the scene. Neither Neuheisel nor Stevens had gone into detail about what the punishment would be.

Neuheisel said Stevens has shown the team he's learned from his mistakes.

"I think that was a worthy punishment that he missed the first half," Neuheisel said.

Stevens had started all but two games for the Huskies. Last year, he caught 43 passes for 600 yards and three touchdowns.

They have talked "long and hard" about his decisions, Neuheisel said.

Stevens hopes his problems are behind him.

"That's how I want it to be," he said. "It was hard sitting the first half. I was psyched to get in there."

In May, police said, the 21-year-old Stevens drove into the Merrill Gardens, ripping a hole in a wall and shattering a window in a bedroom where a 92-year-old woman was sleeping. The impact knocked a dresser onto the woman's bed, but she was not hurt.

He pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor hit-and-run and was ordered to complete 240 hours of community service for the elderly and homeless. A 90-day jail term and $1,000 fine were suspended.

Stevens spent much of his summer doing community service in a downtown homeless shelter.

Stevens said last month that he had learned from his mistakes and is ready to be a leader for the Huskies, who shared the Pac-10 title last season and beat Purdue in the Rose Bowl.

"It's nothing I feel like I need to hide," said Stevens, a second-team All-Pac-10 selection in 2000.

He knows he needs to improve his public image before next year's NFL Draft. Stevens likely will forgo his senior year to be draft-eligible, and he could be one of the first tight ends taken.

"There is no question he has had the kind of publicity that we don't like in his life away from football," Neuheisel has said.

Last year, Stevens was arrested and jailed overnight for investigation of sexual assault. No charges were filed.

In June 1998, he was charged with two counts of assault after a fight near Olympia, about 60 miles south of Seattle. He was a star quarterback at Olympia's River Ridge High School.

Stevens eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor fourth-degree assault for kicking a man. A friend of his was convicted of a more serious charge for assaulting the victim with a baseball bat.

Stevens spent three weeks in jail that summer after a drug test administered under terms of his house arrest turned up THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

He plans to graduate next year with a degree in American Ethnic Studies. He promised his parents he would earn his degree before playing professionally.