Jonah Coleman Leads The Way As Washington Beats UC Davis, 70-10
By Jake Parr edited by Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA - The Washington Husky football team tied their modern era record for points in a single game tonight, hanging a 70 on the scoreboard. Every time the Huskies had the ball, they brought it to the house for a touchdown, including a punt return score. The UC Davis Aggies had no answer for Senior running back Jonah Coleman, who set a career record with five rushing touchdowns, doing so on just 15 rushes. Despite some frustrating penalties in the first half, the Washington defense was effective, limiting the Aggies to just a single touchdown and field goal. Washington took another step forward from last week’s big win over Colorado State and now seem poised to face the Washington State Cougars in the Apple Cup in two weeks.
“That was a fun game for the University of Washington. I thought our crowd was great. Though our crowd was loud. We had a couple of false starts due to crowd noise, delay of game, causing time outs. So that was awesome. It was awesome to see our crowd get into this game. It’s awesome to have a 22 game home win streak. That’s pretty cool. And now we’re going to focus on getting the Apple Cup back…”
Pregame frames ahead of the Washington Husky home win over the UC Davis Aggies on Saturday, September 6th, 2025 at Husky Stadium. (Photos by Eric Hiller for Circling Seattle Sports)
Establishing the Run
Tonight’s game started as it meant to go on, as UC Davis were the victims of an ugly 3-and-out and punted to the Huskies. Washington also put together a three-play drive, but instead of going backwards five yards, they went 60 yards down field for a touchdown. Just 2 minutes and 43 seconds had elapsed on the game clock. Jonah Coleman scored that TD for Washington, and he would go on to score four more before the game ended, the most he’s ever scored in a single game. After last week’s outstanding performance resulted in him being named the Doak Walker National Running Back of the Week, he was simply unstoppable this week. As was the rest of the Washington Rushing corps. The Huskies gained 324 yards on the ground, powered by stellar performances from Coleman (5 TD, 111 YDS), Sophomore RB Adam Mohammed (1 TD, 95 YDS), and Sophomore QB Demond Williams Jr. (1 TD, 64 YDS).
“No, I want to see my teammates getting in there, you know, it’s their turn. I wanted to see Adam get a touchdown and Jordan get a touchdown or, you know. It was exciting to see those kinds of scores for touchdowns and stuff like that. You know, so I did my part, we already did our part, stuff like that. So it was really time to celebrate my teammates. ”
Frames of Washington Husky running back Jonah Coleman during his five touchdown performance against the UC Davis Aggies on Saturday, September 6th, 2025 at Husky Stadium. (Photos by Eric Hiller for Circling Seattle Sports)
In fact, the lone passing touchdown scored by the Huskies tonight came on a jet sweep that Freshman WR Dezman Roebuck took 47 yards to the end zone. Jet sweeps are technically passes, but are philosophically akin to ground pounding; less air raid, more brief sortie. Roebuck received the ball four yards behind the line of scrimmage, directly behind the center. No fewer than six Aggies were within range to tackle him, and at least three physically touched him, but he made every defender look like it was their first day playing football. Just after passing the first down marker, at the UC Davis 33, he had five players closing in on him. And with a single dead leg he evaded all of them. No one else got close to him. Over half of his 47 yard jaunt was functionally uncontested. It was just that kind of day for the Huskies.
“I mean, he had 15 carries and five of them were touchdowns, so, pretty good performance. I also want to say that he won the Academic Athlete of the Year for our football team. The highest cumulative GPA of our entire football team - a 3.91, over the year that he’s been here. So we were able to reward him for that as well. So a pretty cool day. He posted on his Twitter yesterday and his Instagram yesterday the awards that he got from our academic services and then today, you have five touchdowns. It’s a pretty good weekend.”
Perhaps one of the reasons the ground game was so heavily relied on by the Huskies was that wide receiver sophomore Rashid Williams had to be taken out of the game after just one reception after taking a big hit. Washington head coach Jedd Fisch expects him to be out for “at least the next few weeks.”
Frames of Washington Husky starting quarterback Demond Williams Jr. and backup quarterback Kai Horton during the teams win against the UC Davis Aggies on Saturday, September 6th, 2025 at Husky Stadium. (Photos by Eric Hiller for Circling Seattle Sports)
But don’t think that the Huskies weren’t getting it done in the air. Starting QB Demond Williams Jr. threw for 254 yards en route to a 162.5 passer rating, eerily similar to last week’s 226 yards and 167.9 passer rating. As dominant as Coleman was tonight, Williams Jr. is showing signs of the kind of consistency the Huskies want from their starting quarterback. Senior Horton Kai also made an appearance as quarterback, playing the end of the third quarter and all of the fourth. He completed just 3 of 5 passes, but still picked up 30 yards in the air and a rushing touchdown of his own. The Huskies simply could not be stopped. All 9 of their drives that actually had a play from scrimmage ended in a touchdown. This game could have been played on a 100 mile field instead of a 100 yard one, and the Huskies still would have found a way to score every time.
Huskies Get In Their Own Way
After last week’s game, Washington head coach Jedd Fisch emphasized that the team would look for more consistency out of their special teams unit. There were several missed blocks on kickoffs and punts that resulted in unnecessary yards given up. At first, while the game was still competitive, Junior placekicker Ethan Moczulski clearly had instructions to just kick it out of the back of the endzone, which he did for each of his three kicks in the first quarter. But in the second quarter, once the Huskies had a 21-3 lead, he started giving the Aggies returnable kicks. His first being caught at the 8 and returned for 24 yards, and the second went out of bounds, resulting in a drive starting at the UC Davis 35. After that, Senior Grady Gross handled the rest of the kickoffs, with all of them landing in the endzone, except one which was fair caught at the 1 yard line.
Frames of Washington Husky wide receiver Denzel Boston during his 78 yard punt return touchdown against the UC Davis Aggies on Saturday, September 6th, 2025 at Husky Stadium. (Photos by Eric Hiller for Circling Seattle Sports)
“Yeah, you know, coming into the end of the half, it was on my mind. I was just telling myself, I’m gonna return this point, you know what I mean? I knew I had the ability and I’m just glad I got to showcase it tonight, and you know, I got to give that to God, just giving me that opportunity. And, you know, like I told them earlier, I’ve always been about special teams. It’s important to me. I’ve built my career on special teams. When I was a freshman, playing all four phases.”
But kickoff oddities like that are relatively minor, and it was clear anyway from the first play of the game, in which UC Davis QB Caden Pinnick was sacked for 8 yards, that the Aggies simply were not up to the calibre of the Huskies. And yet they managed to score double digit points. They had some help, though, as both of the Aggies’ scoring drives benefitted from defensive penalties by the Huskies.
In the first quarter, with UC Davis staring at an uncomfortable 3rd and 8 at their own 27, UW Junior LB Xe’ree Alexander committed a roughing the passer penalty that gave the Aggies 15 yards and a new set of downs. UC Davis would eventually parlay that into a field goal. In the second quarter, with the Aggies on 2nd and 5 at midfield, the Huskies committed back-to-back holding and pass interference penalties that gave the Aggies 25 free yards, a full quarter of the field. That drive would end in UC Davis’ lone TD. The Huskies shouldn’t dwell on the small handful of mistakes they made tonight, but even so should look to improve, despite the outlandish number on the scoreboard.
“Give a lot of credit to coach Jedd Fisch and the Huskies. They’re a tremendous team, expect them to have a great year.”
Quick Husky football notes
65,421 was the announced attendance at Husky Stadium for tonight’s game between the UC Davis Aggies and our Washington Husky football team.
The Huskies’ 70 points tied for most in modern UW history (post-WWII), matching their total at Oregon in 2016 (70-21).
Washington’s eight rushing touchdowns were the most for the Huskies since the 1951 game vs. Oregon, when they also had eight.
The last time UW totaled 300-plus passing and rushing yards in the same game was also that win at Oregon in 2016. Tonight, UW rushed for 325 and passed for 304. At Oregon in ’16, the Dawgs notched 378 rushing yards and 304 through the air.
UW’s 34 first downs were second-most in single-game history, behind only the 2002 Wyoming game (36).
Husky running back Jonah Coleman tied the modern program record for rushing touchdowns in a single game with five, set by Corey Dillon (1996 vs. UCLA) and Hugh McElhenny (1950 vs. Washington State) on a 5-yard rushing touchdown early in the third quarter.
Ervin Daily set the school's all-time mark with seven rushing touchdowns against Whitman in 1919.
Coleman finished the evening with his seventh career 100-yard rushing game at Washington.
Coleman also surpassed 2,500 career rushing yards, finishing the night with 2,584. He entered the game with 2,473 career rushing yards, good for eighth-most among active FBS players entering the weekend.
Washington won its 22nd straight home game, dating back to a loss to Washington State in the final game of the 2021 season. The Huskies have also won 10 straight non-conference home games, dating back to the 2021 season-opener, as well as 30 of their last 31 against non-conference foes at Husky Stadium.
Husky wideout Denzel Boston scored his first punt return touchdown, with a 78-yarder in the second quarter.
It was the first by a Husky since Rome Odunze scored on a punt return vs. California in 2023.
It also tied for the 14th-longest punt return TD in school history.
Husky quarterback Demond Williams Jr. has passed for 200-plus yards in all four of his college starts so far, with 254 tonight. He has also completed a touchdown pass in all four.
Williams is now 116-for-154 passing in his career, a .753 completion percentage. He’s also thrown 10 TD passes with just one interception.
What’s next?
And they’ll be looking to improve as they face the Washington State Cougars in two weeks’ time. The Huskies will be looking to win back the Apple Cup, which they lost in last year’s 24-19 contest. When asked about how putting up 70 points right before a big rivalry game made him feel, wide receiver Denzel Boston said that it gives the team “a lot of confidence, a lot of momentum, and now we get to get our bodies right over this bye week and then come back into WSU’s house and see what we can do.”
If you would like to see what the Huskies can do in WSU’s house, you can watch the game on Saturday September 20th at 4:30 pm PT on CBS. If you prefer the radio experience, tune in to Sports Radio 93.3 KJR for the play-play.
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