Dawgs Head Back East For Big Noon Kickoff At Michigan

Saturday, October 18

Ann Arbor, Mich.

9:00 a.m. PT

University of Washington

Michigan

Photo by: Scott Eklund / Red Box Pictures

October 13, 2025 | Football

Full UW Notes (PDF)Gameday Central

THE GAME: The Washington football team (5-1 overall, 2-1 Big Ten) heads east to take on Michigan (4-2, 2-1) in FOX's Big Noon Kickoff game. The game will get underway at noon ET/9:00 a.m. PT and air on FOX television. The Huskies are 2-0 on the road this season. It'll be the 16th-ever Washington-Michigan game, and the fourth in the last five seasons, alongside a non-conference game in Ann Arbor in 2021, the 2024 CFP National Championship Game, and a Washington win over the Wolverines last season at Husky Stadium. The following Saturday, Oct. 25, UW returns home to face Illinois.

QUICK HITTERS: Husky RB Jonah Coleman leads the nation in scoring (12.0 points per game), rushing touchdowns (11), and total touchdowns (12), and is second total points (72) ... Coleman also ranks No. 7 in all-purpose yards ... Coleman has new career highs for attempts (24 vs. Colo. St.), rushing TDs (5 vs. UC Davis), receptions (8, vs. Maryland), and receiving yards (104 vs. WSU) this year ... Husky QB Demond Williams Jr. is currently No. 3 in the nation in completion percentage and No. 5 in pass efficiency ... it takes 325 attempts (he has 263) to make the NCAA career active leaders rankings, but if he qualified, Williams would easily lead all active players in career pass efficiency (178.88), which would also rank No. 2 in FBS history ... as a team, UW ranks No. 5 in the nation in third-down percentage and pass efficiency, and No. 8 in rushing defense ... Washington won 24-20 Oct. 4 at Maryland, despite trailing 20-0 ... it was the seventh 20-point comeback in UW history and the first on the road since the 1993, 24-23 win at California ... Washington has outscored opponents 80-10 in the fourth quarter this season ... only one of six UW opponents has scored in the final quarter this year ... the Huskies rank No. 10 in the FBS in scrimmage plays of 10-plus yards (109), and No. 4 with 44 plays of 20-plus yards ... Coleman ranks No. 9 in the nation in plays of 10-plus yards (24), while Wiliams ranks No. 4 in 10-plus yard rushing plays, with 21 ... Washington's last eight true road games have been announced sellouts ... the current UW roster includes players from 19 different states, as well as in Australia and Canada.

TELEVISION: The UW-Michigan game will air on FOX television's Big Noon Kickoff, with Gus Johnson, Joel Klatt and Jenny Taft on the call. For more on how to watch online, www.foxsports.com/live.

RADIO: All Washington football games will air on the Washington Sports Network from Learfield, with Tony Castricone (play by play), former Husky tight end Cameron Cleeland (analyst) and former UW basketball player Elise Woodward (sidelines) on the call. Radio coverage begins four hours before kickoff on the network's flagship station – Seattle's SportsRadio KJR 93.3 FM – with "Husky Gameday" live from The Zone for Husky home games. Statewide coverage on the 17-station Washington Sports Network begins two hours before kickoff. The entire broadcast is available worldwide on the Huskies Gameday mobile app and the Varsity app. The UW broadcast of this game will also air on Sirius/XM channel 372. Additionally, the Husky Football Coach's Show airs each game-week Monday during the season at 6:00 p.m. PT, live from JOEY Kitchen in University Village.

GRADUATES: A total of 12 Huskies head into the 2025 season already having earned their undergraduate degree, whether from UW or from another university before transferring to UW. Here's the list: CJ Christian (S), Zach Durfee (DE), Makell Esteen (S), Geirean Hatchett (OL), Milton Hopkins (DE), Deshawn Lynch (DL), Dyson McCutcheon (S), Quentin Moore (TE), Simote Pepa (DL), Logan Sagapolu (DL), Anthony Ward (LB), Carver Willis (OL).

ACADEMIC SUCCESS: Following the most recent academic quarter (spring, 2025), the UW football program posted some impressive results. The Husky football team's cumulative GPA for the quarter was 3.27, highest ever in program history. Additionally, 26 football players made the Dean's list, including the following 22 current team members: Xe'Ree Alexanders, Deven Bryant, Jonah Coleman, Elinneus Davis, Decker DeGraaf, Kade Eldridge, Jonathan Epperson Jr., Omari Evans, Luke Gayton, Zachary Henning, Luke Luchini, Jacob Manu, Dyson McCutcheon, Paul Mencke Jr., John Mills, Ephesians Prysock, Jack Shaffer, Austin Simmons, Anterio Thompson, Rainen Vines-Bright, Beck Walker and Demond Williams Jr.

IN THE CFP ERA: The era of the four-team College Football Playoff is gone, but that 10-season stretch (2014-2023) is instructive in terms of illustrating the teams that operated at the top level of the sport during that timespan, and Washington is one of those teams. Over that 10-year stretch, only 15 different programs earned a berth in the CFP semifinals, and only eight reached the tournament more than once. With two CPF berths in the four-team era (2016 and 2023), Washington is one of those eight. Only six teams made more than two appearances: Alabama (8), Clemson (6), Ohio State (5), Oklahoma (4), Georgia (3) and Michigan (3). For what it's worth, six more teams made their CFP debut in the 12-team bracket in 2024, but UW remains one of (now) 10 teams to have appeared in the CFP more than once, when counting the 2024 data.

B1G TIME: As has been well documented over the last couple of years, Washington officially joined the Big Ten Conference ahead of the 2024-25 school year, effective on Aug. 2, 2024. The Huskies were joined be fellow former Pac-12 programs Oregon, UCLA and USC in making the move to the B1G, which now includes 18 schools. Washington was one of four founding members of the Pacific Coast Conference (along with Cal, Oregon and Oregon State), and, along with Cal, was one of just two teams that were a part of that league (which changed names to the AAWU, Pac-8, Pac-10 and Pac-12) for the entirety of its full-fledged existence from 1915 to 2024.

FUTURE SCHEDULES: In October, 2023, the Big Ten revealed 18 football teams' home and away, conference opponents for the next for the following five seasons (2024-28). Here are the UW's home and road, Big Ten games, for the coming three years:

2026: home – Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Penn State; road – Michigan State, Nebraska, Oregon, Purdue, USC
2027: home – Maryland, Michigan State, Nebraska, Oregon, USC; road – Minnesota, Northwestern, Penn State, Rutgers
2028: home – Michigan, Northwestern, UCLA, Wisconsin; road – Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Ohio State, Oregon

HUSKIES vs. WOLVERINES HISTORY: UW and Michigan have played one another 15 times, with the Huskies winning six of those games. Four of those 15 meetings were in the Rose Bowl game, with the two teams splitting those four contests. The two foes first met in 1953 and 1954, with the Wolverines notching shutouts in each: 50-0 in 1953 in Ann Arbor; and 14-0 the following year in Seattle. Michigan won two more against Washington in 1969 (45-7 in Ann Arbor) and 1970 (17-3 in Seattle), but the Huskies have won six of 11 since that 0-4 start to the series.

In Don James' first bowl game as Washington head coach, No. 13 UW won the 1978 Rose Bowl, 27-20, upsetting fourth-ranked Michigan. UW built a 27-7 lead behind two touchdown passes and one run from MVP Warren Moon, and held off a Rick Leach-led Michigan team for the win. Just three years later, No. 5 Michigan earned a 23-6 win over No. 16 Washington on New Year's Day 1981 in Pasadena.

The series returned to the regular season a few years later, with Washington winning a pair of early-season, non-conference meetings, 25-24 at Husky Stadium in 1983, and 20-11 the following season in Ann Arbor. The 1983 game is remembered by Husky fans as one of the great regular-season, non-conference victories in program history, and the UW career highlight of quarterback Steve Pelluer, who finished the game with 14 straight completions, leading UW to a late victory. Pelluer completed eight passes on the game-winning drive, which culminatted with a seven-yard TD pass to Mark Pattison, cutting the UM lead to 24-23. Then, the UW opted to go for two on the conversion, when Pelluer threw a strike to Larry Michael to wrap up the 25-24 win.

After those two mid-1980s meetings, the two program next met at the 1992 Rose Bowl, where No. 2 Washington beat No. 4 Michigan, 34-14, to wrap up a 12-0 season and a share of the national championship. The next year, with UW in tumult, No. 7 Michigan handed the No. 9 Huskies a 38-31 loss in Pasadena.

More recent meetings came in 2001 and 2002. In the first of those, played three days before the 9/11 attacks, 15th-ranked Washington edged Michigan, 23-18, thanks in large part to cornerback Omare Lowe, who blocked a field goal that was returned for a touchdown, then returned an inteception for a score, all in less than one minute in the fourth quarter. The folllowing year at Michigan Stadium, the Wolverines got a last-minute, 44-yard field goal from Philip Brabbs to win, 31-29. The game-winning drive was famously helped along by an illegal participation (12 men on the field) penalty on the Washington defense, which extended the drive.

The Huskies and Wolverines were meant to square off again in 2020 and 2021, but the 2020 game was canceled due to the pandemic (Pac-12 teams did not play any out-of-conference games). In the second game of the 2021 season, the Dawgs traveled to Ann Arbor, where the home team came away with a 31-11 win. Both Blake Corum and Hassan Haskins rushed for more than 150 yards, while UW quarterback Dylan Morris passed for 293 yards.

The Huskies and Wolverines squared off in the 2024 CFP National Championship Game (2023 season), with Michigan winning, 34-13. After a pair of long touchdown runs from Donovan Edwards (41 and 46 yards) built a 17-3 lead for Michigan, the Huskies were within a touchdown (20-13) for a long stretch in the second half, but another pair of rushing TDs in the fourth quarter – both from Blake Corum – provided for the final margin. Last year, the two teams met on Oct. 5, the Huskies' sixth game of the year, when unranked Washington handed No. 10 Michigan a 27-17 loss. UW built a 14-0 lead on touchdown passes from Will Rogers III to Denzel Boston and Giles Jackson, but the Wolverines cut the lead to 14-10 by halftime. After the visitors took a 17-14 lead in the third, Washington got two Grady Gross field goals sandwiched on either side of a one-yard touchdown run from Jonah Coleman to earn the win.

DEMOND'S BIG DAY: UW quarterback Demond Williams Jr. turned in a career performance in Washington's 38-19 win over Rutgers on Fri., Oct. 10, passing for 402 yards while rushing for 138. In doing so, he became the first Husky, second Big Ten player and 16th QB in NCAA-FBS history to pass for 400-plus yards and rush for 100 or more in a game. His 138 rushing yards were fourth-most ever by a Husky quarterback (his was just the 12th 100-yard rushing performance by a QB in UW history), and his 538 yards of total offense broke Michael Penix's record of 529, set in 2022 vs. Arizona (516 passing, 13 rushing). His 402 passing yards were 15th-most in UW single-game history.

ROSTER TURNOVER: Like at a lot of programs in this day and age of college football, Washington's roster has seen a good deal of turnover in the last few years, unsurprisingly, given that UW has had four head coaches in seven years. However, in terms of class years, the 2025 Husky football roster is relatively balanced. At the start of the season, UW's 103-man roster includes 29 true freshmen, 15 redshirt freshmen, 19 sophomores, 18 juniors, and 22 seniors. However, taking into consideration how many years players have been at UW provides a different picture, as 77 of the 103 are playing their first (47) or second (30) at Washington in 2025. UW's roster also includes 14 third-year Huskies, seven fourth-year (including Anthony Ward, who spent two years at UW before going to Arizona for two seasons), four fifth-year (including Geirean Hatchett, who spent last season at Oklahoma), and one sixth-year roster member (Makell Esteen, whose first year at Washington was 2020).

STARTING EXPERIENCE: For the second year in a row, it's fair to say that UW did not return a large number of starters from the previous year. However, the Husky roster DOES include a surprisingly large number of players with starting experience – nearly all from last year. Not counting specialists (Grady Gross has been UW's "starting kicker" for two seasons), and not counting the current Huskies who started for other college programs before transferring to UW, Washington had 20 different current players who had started in a Husky uniform – 12 on offense (total of 70 UW starts) and eight on defense (32).

In addition to the 20 current player who had started for Washington, the 2025 Husky roster includes 21 players (some of them the 20 who have since started for UW) who have started at least once for another four-year college: LB Buddah Al-Uqdah (21 starts at Washington State), LB Xe'ree Alexander (7 at UCF, 6 at Idaho), OL Drew Azzopardi (6 at San Diego State), S CJ Christian (19 at FIU), RB Jonah Coleman (7 at Arizona), Tacario Davis (22 at Arizona), Zach Durfee (11 at Sioux Falls), TE Kade Eldridge (1 at USC), WR Omari Evans (6 at Penn State), WR Kevin Green Jr. (2 at Arizona), OL Geirean Hatchett (1 at Oklahoma), QB Kai Horton (1 at Tulane), LB Jacob Manu (27 at Arizona), S Alex McLaughlin (23 at NAU), DL Simote Pepa (3 at Utah), CB Ephesians Prysock (16 at Arizona), DL Logan Sagapolu (1 at Miami, Fla.), DL Anterio Thompson (12 at WMU), DL Ta'ita'I Uiagalelei (13 at Arizona), EDGE Isaiah Ward (11 at Arizona), and OL Carver Willis (18 at Kansas State).

All totaled, as of the start of the 2025 season, UW had 33 different players with a combined total of 330 career starts at the four-year college level.

ALASKA AIRLINES FIELD AT HUSKY STADIUM: The Oregon game on Nov. 5, 2011, marked the final game in Husky Stadium prior to major renovations that were completed in summer, 2013. The Huskies re-opened their home field with a 38-6 win over then-No. 19 Boise State on Aug. 31, 2013. The 2024 season marks the 104th season of play in Husky Stadium. Original construction on the facility was completed in 1920 when Washington played one game in the new campus facility. UW's all-time record in Husky Stadium stands at 421-186-21 (.687). Washington is 66-17 (.795) in home games since the stadium re-opened in 2013.