Huskies To Make First-Ever Trip To Maryland

Saturday, October 4

College Park, Md.

12:30 p.m. PT

University of Washington

Maryland

demond williams at washington state 2025

Photo by: Scott Eklund / Red Box Pictures

September 29, 2025 | Football

Full Game Notes (PDF)Gameday Central

THE GAME: The Washington football team (3-1 overall, 0-1 Big Ten) makes its first-ever trip to face Maryland (4-0, 1-0) this Saturday at SECU Stadium. The game is scheduled for a 3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. PT kickoff, and will air on the Big Ten Network. The Huskies and Terrapins have met just once, in the 1982 Aloha Bowl, a 21-20 Husky victory. The game will mark the Huskies second in a row (and second of five this season) vs. a team coming off of a bye week. Following the trip east, the Huskies return to Seattle to face Rutgers in a Friday night game, at 6:00 p.m. on Oct. 10.

QUICK HITTERS: Husky RB Jonah Coleman leads the nation in scoring (15.0 points per game), rushing touchdowns (9), and touchdowns (10) ... he is second only to Hawai'i's kicker in total points (62 to 60) ... Coleman also ranks No. 4 in all-purpose yards and No. 9 in rushing ... he has new career highs for attempts (24 vs. Colo. St.), rushing TDs (5 vs. UC Davis) and receiving yards (104 vs. WSU) this year ... Husky QB Demond Williams Jr. is currently fourth in the nation in yards per attempt and completion percentage, seventh in pass efficiency ... Washington already has 106 yards in punt returns this season ... last year, in 13 games, Washington compiled just 93 punt return yards ... Washington has scored on 25 of 37 possessions this season, and that 37 includes three possessions in which UW took a knee to end a half or a game ... the Huskies scored a touchdown on 12 staight possessions over games two and three and scored (TD or FG) on 17 in a row ... as a team, Washington ranks No. 4 in FBS in third-down percentage (.609) and No. 8 in turnover margin (+1.25 per game) ... UW has just one turnover this year, on a mishandled snap in the season opener ... Washington has outscored opponents 52-10 in the fourth quarter this season ... the current UW roster includes players who list hometowns from 19 different states, as well as in Australia and Canada ... UW's 103-man roster includes 47 players who are in their first season as a Husky, and (including those 47), 77 who are in their first or second year in the Purple and Gold ... whereas last season, the opening-day Husky roster did not include a single offensive lineman who'd ever started a game for Washington, this season's roster included seven such o-linemen.

TELEVISION: The UW-Maryland game will air on Big Ten Network, with Guy Haberman, Jake Butt and Brooke Fletcher on the call. For more on how to watch online, www.foxsports.com/live/btn.

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 381 (on the app). 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. TERRAPINS HISTORY: Washington and Maryland have faced one another only once in the two programs' histories. That one game came in the inaugural Aloha Bowl at Aloha Stadium in Christmas Day, 1982. Washington's hopes of a Pac-10 title and a trip to the Rose Bowl had crashed in the Apple Cup, with a 24-20 loss at Washington State, and a Husky team that had spent six weeks at No. 1 in the nation before a loss at Stanford in late October, found themselves bound for Honolulu. Maryland, under first-year head coach Bobby Ross, finished the regular season 8-3, with only a two-point loss to Clemson late in the season separating the Terps from the Atlantic Coast Conference title. Maryland entered the game ranked No. 16, while Washington was No. 9 in the final regular-season AP poll.

The Huskies won the game, 21-20, behind mainly a 350-yard passing performance from quarterback Tim Cowan, who threw the winning touchdown pass to Anthony Allen, an 11-yard strike, with just 11 seconds left in the game.

Washington opened the game with a 27-yard TD pass from Cowan to Allen, but Maryland, behind future NFL MVP Boomer Esiason, scored on a six-yard pass early in the second quarter. However, the PAT kick missed, leaving the Huskies up by a point.

Washington headed to halftime with a 14-6 advantage after the second of three Cowan-to-Allen TDs, this one a 71-yarder. In the third quarter, a 28-yard TD pass from Esiason to Jeff Tice cut the Husky lead to 14-12, with a two-point PAT failing. A two-yard run from John Nash 4:14 into the fourth quarter (and a successful two-point conversion) made it a 20-14 Maryland lead.

After a missed, 32-yard field goal attempt by Maryland with less than four minutes left in the game, the Huskies took the ball for the game-winning possession. Cowan ran or passed on 15 of the 16 plays of that drive, twice converting on fourth down.

Cowan, the game's offense MVP, finished the game 33-for-53 for 350 yards and three touchdowns. His 33 completions and 363 yards of total offense were both school records. Allen caught eight passes for 153 yards and three scores. Husky linebacker Tony Caldwell as the defensive MVP.

Esiason was 19-for-32 for 241 yards, one interception and two touchdowns.

HUSKIES IN THE EAST: Washington's trip to Maryland will mark the Huskies' fifth-most eastern game in school history, behind only two games at Rutgers (2017 and 2024) and two at Syraucuse (1977 and 2007). While the Huskies have played a number of non-conference games at the home of Big Ten teams, Washington has played very few games in locations that can reasonably be considered the "East Coast." When the Huskies opened the 2007 season at Syracuse, it marked their easternmost road game ever to that point in time (it was the Dawgs' second trip to play the Orange as they also played there in 1977), as Syracuse is, in terms of its longitude, east of both Durham, N.C. (where the UW played Duke in 1973), and Miami, Fla. (where the Huskies have played vs. Miami and in the Orange Bowl game), the next two closest competitors for the Huskies' easternmost games of all time. College Park, Md., is a bit more than two degrees of longitude fruther east than Piscataway. and a little under one degree east of Syracuse. For what it's worth, only three FBS programs are west of UW: Oregon, Oregon State and Hawai'i.

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.