Huskies Chase Their Own Tail, Fall 24-6 to Top Ranked Ohio State
By Jake Parr, edited by Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA - The Washington Husky football team lost their first game of the season today, falling 24-6 to the number one ranked team in the country, the Ohio State Buckeyes. The Huskies briefly held a 3-0 lead when they scored a field goal in the second quarter, but allowed three touchdowns to the Buckeyes while only tacking on three more points. It was a frustrating game for Washington, who were held back both by their own misplays and some perhaps overly judicious refereeing. The Huskies will want to shake the loss off quickly as next week they head to the other side of the country to face off against the Maryland Terrapins.
“The mistakes that were made, can’t happen, and I want to learn from that. We’re going to coach better. We’re going to play better, and we have an opportunity to go do that next week.”
The Washington Husky offense showed flashes of quality play throughout the game against top ranked Ohio State, but not nearly enough as they failed to record a touchdown in their 24-6 defeat at Husky Stadium on Saturday, September 27th, 2025. (Photos by Eric Hiller for Circling Seattle Sports)
Stumbling out the gate
Today’s game got off to a slow start by both teams, both teams failed to convert on their first drive. Washington was stuffed with a three-and-out and forced to punt on their first possession to open the game. The Buckeyes seemed like they were going to score, but were unable to push through a 4th and 1 conversion at the Washington 5 yard line. That turnover on downs led to one of the most chaotic sequences for the Huskies in their young season.
After an excellent pass to freshman wideout Dezmen Roebuck that moved Washington to the 23, as the line judge referee was moving to signal first down, he bumped into Washington head coach Jedd Fisch who was standing slightly outside of the team box. Rather than issue a warning, the line judge immediately slapped the Huskies with a sideline interference penalty despite the fact that the play was already blown dead and the clock was not running. That pushed the Huskies back to the twelve yard line.
The Washington Husky defense was able to hold the Ohio State Buckeyes offense at bay in the first half of their 24-6 defeat at Husky Stadium on Saturday, September 27th, 2025. (Photos by Eric Hiller for Circling Seattle Sports)
A couple of plays and just five yards later, Fisch, having either lost his temper or looking to fire up his team, ran on to the field and yelled at the referee while gesticulating enthusiastically. That drew a rare unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against the coach, and pushed Washington back another eight yards. Which was added on to again by an illegal snap call against the Huskies. Now, instead of 1st and 10 at their 23, these three penalties had the Huskies staring at 3rd and 18 from their own 4. Unable to get the conversion, they were forced to punt.
Initially, OSU wide receiver and punt returner Brandon Inniss made a good return, but as he was being tackled at the Huskies 21, he fumbled the ball and turned it back over to Washington. So after that remarkable sequence of penalties and miscues, the Huskies got the ball back almost exactly where they should have had it after the Roebuck completion. The ball must have been under oath.
Reckless, wild, and incomplete
The Huskies rode that free possession all the way to the OSU 2 yard line -- powered by highlight reel plays by running back Jonah Coleman, wide receiver Denzel Boston, and Dezmen Roebuck -- but were unable to complete the paperwork and were forced to settle for a chip shot field goal. The Huskies defense held firm against the Buckeyes on their next possession, allowing only 15 yards across six plays, and the offense was again able to march to the red zone. But after a momentum killing sack on 2nd and 5, they were forced to send out the field goal unit. And once again, things got weird.
On 4th and 14, Fisch called for a fake field goal, hoping to catch the Buckeyes off guard. Unfortunately, it also caught sophomore tight end Decker DeGraaf off guard. As kicker Grady Gross dropped back to pass to DeGraaf, he was stuck engaging with his blocker. Facing pressure from both sides, Gross threw it away and it fell incomplete, turning the ball over on downs. After the game, Coach Fisch had little to say about the play. "We thought we had a look all week at how they were gonna rush when we were on the right hash, and it didn't get executed well," the Huskies head coach said.
That misfire was the turning point in the game, as Ohio State leveraged the momentum shift all the way into the endzone, scoring the first touchdown of the game just a minute before the first half ended.
The top ranked Ohio State Buckeyes used a 17-point second half to pull away from the unranked Washington Huskies in the 24-6 game at Husky Stadium on Saturday, September 27th, 2025. (Photos by Eric Hiller for Circling Seattle Sports)
Worn down and wearing it
Ohio State began the second half with the ball, and powered through the Huskies on a 75 yard, seven minute touchdown drive. They were first penalized 15 yards after ripping a Husky’s helmet off, but were the beneficiaries of a questionable roughing the passer call to get those 15 yards -- and the first down -- back. They rode that tennis match of penalties back into the end zone and built their lead to 14-3.
The Huskies needed a touchdown on their next drive to still have a reasonable chance of victory, and even got all the way to the OSU 7 yard line. But once again the Buckeye defense held strong in the shadow of their own goalpost and prevented a touchdown. After Williams Jr. was sacked again, Fisch sent out Gross to kick a field goal once again. This time it was real and although it was good, the Huskies still sat facing an 8 point deficit.
“Self-inflicted wounds. You can’t get penalties in the red zone and You can’t have negative plays or take sacks or just have anything near that. Everybody has got to be locked in when we get in the red zone, because that’s the most important part of the drive. I feel like we
didn’t do a good enough job of that today.”
Which turned back into 11 points, as the Buckeyes ground out a long possession -- eating even into the fourth quarter -- for a field goal of their own to put the game effectively out of reach. The Huskies had two more desperation drives, but they came to naught, as the Buckeyes even tacked on another touchdown to stretch the lead to 24-6.
A historic crowd helped support the Washington Huskies in their 24-6 defeat to the top ranked Ohio State Buckeyes at Husky Stadium on Saturday, September 27th, 2025. (Photos by Eric Hiller for Circling Seattle Sports)
The Buckeyes defense was the first of the young 2025 season to keep the Huskies out of the end zone. They accomplished this feat by both standing strong in the red zone and by sacking Williams Jr. six times across the game, stealing 28 yards from the Huskies, and preventing the quarterback from buying time for stars like Boston, Roebuck, and Omari Evans to get loose. Running back Jonah Coleman had some success against them, rushing for 70 yards on 13 carries, but wasn’t able to do enough to push his team to the win. It was a grueling game for the vaunted Huskies offense.
“Guys are excited. We don’t have moral victories, but they also know that like, okay, we went toe to toe, we were physical. We could stop them on short yardage. We were able to move the football. We were able to have drives down in the red zone. We were able to keep it a one score game, being a four point game at half. You just need that confidence sometimes, too, that it’s real, that you’re there. You know, forget what people are saying. You’re real, and we believe we’re real, and we believe we’re really good. So we’re excited about coming out there Thursday to the East Coast, and we’re going to come out there on a mission to play our best football. And we’re going to see if we can play the best we’ve played this whole season by being fully locked in this week.”
Quick Husky football notes
Today’s attendance – 72,485 – is the largest at Husky Stadium since the stadium reopened at the start of the 2013 season. It’s the largest total since the 2010 Nebraska game (72,876).
UW safety Alex McLaughlin finished the game with 13 total tackles, most of the year by any Husky and tied for the most in his career (at UW or at Northern Arizona). He also had 13 last year in a game vs. Eastern Washington.
At one point, UW QB Demond Williams Jr. completed 14 straight passes (after an incompletion on his fourth attempt had him at 3-for-4). For the season, Williams is now 68-for-90, good for a 75.6 completion percentage.
In his six career starts, Williams has played vs. the AP’s No. 1-ranked team twice – last year at Oregon and today vs. Ohio State. Combined in those two games, Williams is 35-for-42 for 374 yards.
Washington had gone 10 quarters (two and a half games) without punting, until the first quarter today. Ethan Moczulski has had his last 13 kickoffs go for touchbacks. Ohio State had no scrimmage plays of 20 or more yards today. The longest play was a 19-yard pass from Julian Sayin to Jeremiah Smith. By contrast, UW had four such plays: one Jonah Coleman run and three passes from Williams. Washington had its 22-game home winning streak broken today, a streak that went back to a loss to Washington State in the final game of the 2021 season. The 22-game home win streak was the secondlongest active home streak in the nation and the longest in UW history since Washington won 45 home games in a row between 1908-1917.
What’s next?
Washington need not be discouraged by today’s loss. After all, they took on the number one ranked team in the country and made it a competitive game through the first half. Perhaps the ranking committee will take notice of that and toss the Huskies a few votes, although the box score does not jump off the page.
“I think we’re a really good team. I think that we have a great opportunity to continue on and have a really good season. And it’s week four, I just told the team, I go, it’s week four guys, we’re 3-1. So now what? We play at number one team in the country and we played it really well, and it was a heavyweight fight until the last five minutes, four minutes of the game, I guess, is when it turned into more than, you know, two scores, but I feel like we got a really good football team, and I’m really excited about getting on the road on Thursday – flying to Maryland and then seeing how well we can play. It’ll be a great challenge for our team to see how well we can play coming off the frustration of this one.”
Regardless, the Huskies will have to move quickly to get back into winning form, as they are off all the way to College Park, Maryland next Saturday to continue conference play, taking on the Maryland Terrapins. Like Ohio State, the Terrapins are undefeated on the season, but the only winning team they’ve played this year were the FCS Towson Tigers.
Kickoff will be at 12:30 pm PT and will be available on TV on the Big 10 Network. Should you prefer to listen to it on the radio, you’ll find it on Seattle SportsRadio 93.3 KJR.
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