Husky Football Halftime Observations From Washington’s Home Matchup Against Illinois, October 25th, 2025

By Charles Hamaker

Seattle, WA - At the halfway marker of this Big Ten contest between visiting Illinois and our Washington Huskies, the purple and gold hold a four-point lead thanks to a double pass trick play touchdown right before the half as Denzel Boston found Jonah Coleman from 12-yards out. Things looked good early for the Huskies, as Demond Williams Jr. and Dezmen Roebuck connected for a pair of 13-yard passing touchdowns, but Washington wasn’t able to sustain their early offensive momentum and Illinois was able to take a temporary lead thanks to two passing touchdowns of their own from Luke Altmyer. Prior to Illinois receiving the ball after the halftime break ends, here are a few basic observations through two quarters of Husky football on Montlake for Jedd Fisch’s team.

Washington gets creative with their tight end situation

With two tight ends out today due to injury, Quentin Moore and Kade Eldridge (out of the season), the Huskies have gotten a bit creative in the first half in how they’ve handled that position. Offensive lineman Zach Henning is wearing #80 today and will be used as a blocking tight end, but it was freshman tight end Baron Naone who was on the field for Washington during running back Jonah Coleman’s first touch of the day, an eight yard carry. Naone got plenty of snaps early on to help block for the Husky rushing attack, which even saw Jordan Washington make an appearance in the backfield on a pop pass in the red zone. As this game progresses further, it will be interesting to see what the Huskies due with looks that demand a tight end when they need more than just Decker DeGraaf.

Unfortunately, DeGraaf hasn’t had the best first half after a holding penalty called against him took back the aforementioned pop pass play for Jordan Washington and he dropped a pass from Demond Williams Jr. on a somewhat important third down play late into the second quarter.

Dezmen Roebuck stands out early

Freshman wide receiver Dezmen Roebuck has made a quality impact for the Huskies in the first half, catching Washington's first two touchdowns of the game on two differing plays. The first reception capped off a ten-play, 75 yard scoring drive for the Huskies that lasted 5:23. Nothing was available immediately for Demond Williams Jr. in the pocket, so he opted to escape to the left side of the field where he’d find a Roebuck running parallel to him a few yards in front of the goal line. Dezmen brought the ball in and turned ahead towards the endzone, shaking off two tackles to break the plane for the contests first score.

His second touchdown capped off a eight play, 67 yard drive that lasted 4:12 to respond to an Illinois field goal at the end of the first quarter. This play was a bit flashier for Washington, as Demond was able to lace a tight throw to Roebuck along the left side of the end zone for a toe tapping grab after beating Illinois defensive back Miles Scott cleanly off the line. While plenty of attention goes to Denzel Boston in regards to the Husky wideouts, it’s been fun to see Roebuck make an impact in his freshman season on Montlake and he’s still got an entire second half to add to that in this game.

Huskies can’t sustain hot start

Coming into this game, Washington didn’t have any points in the first quarter dating back to their road win over Washington State back in week four. That changed today as the Huskies scored two first quarter touchdowns, the first time they’ve done that since that same win over the Cougars. Washington hasn’t been able to get off to any sort of consistent strong start to games yet this season, but they were able to do so today against this tough Illinois team and it started with a fun first drive that saw numerous chunk plays.

The other end of this, unfortunately, is that the Huskies did not sustain their strong start and had issues continuing their offensive momentum. Illinois took advantage of this with two touchdown drives, as Luke Altmyer capped off the first drive with a two-yard pass to Collin Dixon after lasting 14 plays and 8:20 of the clock. That drive saw Illinois convert four third downs, not a pretty sight for the Washington defense. After a three and out from the Husky offense, Illinois was able to get down the field somewhat methodically once again before it appeared as though they’d be denied points thanks to a Tacario Davis leaping interception in the endzone as Altmyer’s pass was high. A pass interference call against Davis kept the drive alive for the visitors, and a Altmyer five-yard completion to Tanner Arkin at the two minute mark before the half gave Illinois a three-point lead.

Availability notes

• Linebacker Jacob Manu will not play in this game, seen assisting linebackers coach Brian Odom with some early pregame drills.

  • Xe’ree Alexander starts at linebacker alongside Deven Bryant for the Washington defense.

• While there were questions during the week regarding whether or not left tackle Carver Willis and left guard John Mills would be ready to go, those were answered pregame when the two offensive linemen weren’t listed on the availability report. They’re largely played the majority of the snaps at their respective positions, although Soane Faasolo got a look late into the second quarter.

  • Mills has a heavily taped up brace on his left ankle.

• Availability report

  • OUT:

    • WR Rashid Williams

    • S CJ Christian

    • TE Kade Eldridge (Out for the season)

    • LT Maximus McCree

    • TE Quentin Moore

    • Edge Isaiah Ward

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Instagram: @CirclingSeattleSports Twitter: @CirclingSports Threads: @CirclingSeattleSports Tiktok: @CirclingSeattleSports Facebook: Circling Seattle Sports BlueSky: @circlingseasports.bsky.social 〰️

Follow our accounts dedicated strictly to University of Washington athletics! Instagram: @CSS_UWHuskies Twitter: @CSS_College

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Follow our accounts dedicated strictly to University of Washington athletics! Instagram: @CSS_UWHuskies Twitter: @CSS_College 〰️

• Check out our previous CSS Huskies articles here.

• Check out our previous Washington Husky Football articles here.

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• Check out our previous articles with writing by Charles Hamaker here.

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