Willie Tuitama imperfect in the simple future

Gary Klein, beat writer for the University of Southern California Trojan football team, said of Willie Tuitama, an opposing quarterback for the University of Arizona Wildcats, a team USC would soon face:

"Arizona's Wilie Tuitama qualifies as the most experienced passer the Trojans will face during the conference schedule."

Klein meant to say: "...qualifies as the most experienced passer the Trojans will have faced during the conference schedule."

Because the Trojans will face other quarterbacks after facing Tuitama, the future perfect tense* is required. That is, first they will square off against Tuitama, then other quarterbacks, even though they may be less competitive than Tuitama. Because Klein is projecting all of the football matches, not just that against Tuitama and his team, he needs to use the future perfect tense: will + have (helping verb) + faced (past participle) to accomplish his intentions:

First Tuitama, then other quarterbacks in actions that will be completed in the future.

For the record: The USC defense stifled Tuitama making him significantly less than perfect in the second half and went on to win the game.


*The Future Perfect Tense is one of the three verb tenses in the Perfect Aspect of verb tenses. The three perfect tenses refer to an action or state that precedes some other action of state (of being).