{"id":76941,"date":"2025-08-31T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T12:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=76941"},"modified":"2025-09-16T21:38:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:38:33","slug":"huskies-out-pace-rams-in-second-half-win-38-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/08\/31\/huskies-out-pace-rams-in-second-half-win-38-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Huskies Out-Pace Rams in Second Half, Win 38-21"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Huskies have now won 21 straight home football games inside Husky Stadium. Washington beat Colorado State 38-21 on Saturday evening in a game that featured 15 explosive plays by the Huskies and critical adjustments at the half. Washington moved the football with efficiency, while the Rams stayed within striking distance for the first part of the contest. \u201cThat\u2019s a very good team,\u201d Jedd Fisch said after the victory. \u201cI would bet that that team wins a lot of games this year. Coach [Jay] Norvell does a great job with his football team.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Huskies Beat Rams 38-21<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Explosive Plays<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Jonah Coleman<\/a>\u2019s 177 rushing yards performance was the second-highest single-game rushing total in his career. He carried the football 24 times and averaged 7.4 yards per touch, scoring two touchdowns. \u201cMy expectation is that he\u2019ll continue to run the football at that level,\u201d Fisch said after the game. Coleman also had one reception for 22 yards in the game for an all-purpose total of 199 yards. \u201c[The offensive line] spent a lot of time this offseason making sure that when we got to the game they were going to feel us when we ran the ball,\u201d Coleman said afterwards. \u201cProud of them boys. Shout out to them, man. They make me look good.\u201d The team rushed for a total of 283 yards behind the much-improved line.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of his 24 carries, seven resulted in 10-plus yards, including a long of 38 yards that set up his second rushing score of the night. The team had 10 runs of 10-plus yards, which accounted for 202 of the 283 rushing yards. \u201cWe were able to run the ball at will,\u201d Demond Williams Jr.<\/a> said after the game. \u201cWhen that happens, it\u2019s awesome. As a quarterback, it definitely opens up the pass even more.\u201d And the pass game certainly benefited.<\/span><\/p>\n

Williams threw for 226 yards on 18 of 24 (75%) with one touchdown. Williams\u2019 passing touchdown went to Denzel Boston<\/a>, who was able to fend off pass interference to haul in a one-handed grab in the corner of the end zone. \u201c[The catch] was awesome. When you have a chance to throw it up there and let your guy go get it, it\u2019s great,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI think a lot of people had questions about his injury and stuff, and I think he proved today that he\u2019s even better than he was last year.\u201d Washington finished with 506 yards of offense on 75 total plays with an average of 6.8 yards per snap.<\/span><\/p>\n

Early Drive Stall-Outs<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Colorado State was able to stay in the game for the first two quarters in large part due to Washington\u2019s inability to capitalize on positive drive starts. The Huskies started their fourth drive of the game at the one-yard line and successfully drove the field to begin with. Gains of 11, 28, and 15 had the Huskies inside the Rams\u2019 40-yard line. But a loss of three, an incomplete pass, and an eight-yard sack forced Washington to punt. Ryan Walters\u2019 defense forced a three-and-out on the ensuing Rams\u2019 possession. But again, an inopportune ending to a positive drive start put the Huskies on their heels.<\/span><\/p>\n

Coleman\u2019s runs of 13 and 12 yards on back-to-back plays were promising as time ticked under three minutes in the second quarter. But Washington\u2019s second down play after the two-minute timeout did not go as expected, and Fisch was forced to take a timeout. Coming out of the timeout, a miscommunication on the snap led to an easy fumble recovery by Colorado State. This time, the Rams turned it into points. \u201c[It was] nothing crazy,\u201d Williams said after the game, regarding the fumble. \u201cWe just had a miscommunication, and he snapped it earlier than I expected.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rams\u2019 Answers<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Colorado State was able to capitalize on Washington’s turnover, driving the field 66 yards on nine plays to score and tie the game at 14. The Rams\u2019 ability to answer Washington early was the biggest reason the Huskies couldn\u2019t pull away. And this one just one of three occasions where Jay Norvell\u2019s unit was able to punch back.<\/span><\/p>\n

After Washington\u2019s first offensive drive went 59 yards for a touchdown, Colorado State immediately answered with a nine-play, 75-yard scoring drive of its own. Fifty-three of the 75 yards were accounted for by Rams\u2019 running back Jalen Dupree<\/a>. He would end up being the team’s leading rusher with 92 yards and a touchdown on 15 attempts.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Huskies scored on the opening drive of the second half as well. But once again, the Rams were able to answer. This time, tight end Jaxxon Warren accounted for two catches of 25 and 27 yards. The latter went for a touchdown, and it tied the game for a third time. \u201cIt\u2019s very hard to prepare for a team when you\u2019re trying to figure out their personnel,\u201d Fisch said after the game. Coleman also spoke to the difficulty of preparing for the first game of a season against a team with a lot of unknowns. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know anybody on their team that we were playing,\u201d Coleman said. “We figured out who we were playing [at the half], and then we did what we did.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Second-Half Clean Up<\/strong><\/h3>\n

What they did was clean up their mistakes and adjust to the Rams’ defense. After the game, Williams discussed the message at halftime that helped them get on the right track. \u201cReally just to stop shooting ourselves in the foot,\u201d Williams said. \u201cA lot of our stuff in the first half was more self-inflicted. And we knew that, and we came out and we corrected it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

They certainly corrected it. Washington scored on four straight drives in the third and fourth quarters – three touchdowns and a field goal. \u201cWe knew when we went into the locker room,\u201d Coleman said after the game. \u201cWe knew what we needed to do to get this thing done, and we did it. Got a stop when we needed a stop, got a turnover when we needed a turnover.\u201d After Colorado State\u2019s answer to tie the game at 21 mid-way through the third quarter, it did not score again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Image: Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Huskies have now won 21 straight home football games inside Husky Stadium. Washington beat Colorado State 38-21 on Saturday evening in a game that featured 15 explosive plays by the Huskies and critical adjustments at the half. Washington moved the football with efficiency, while the Rams stayed within striking distance for the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3944,"featured_media":76944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,17,35612],"tags":[35498,1268,33155,3498,1666,33143,509],"class_list":["post-76941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigten","category-featured","category-news","category-washington-huskies","tag-colorado-state-football","tag-colorado-state-rams","tag-demond-williams-jr","tag-jay-norvell","tag-jedd-fisch","tag-jonah-coleman","tag-washington-huskies"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3944"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76941"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76945,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76941\/revisions\/76945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}