The Washington Huskies move to 2-0 after a dominant 70-10 performance against the UC Davis Aggies. UW scored a touchdown on every single offensive possession they had – something even the stadium did not forecast as they ran out of fireworks in the 3rd. Jonah Coleman continued to establish his #HE1SMAN campaign as he tied the school’s modern record held by Corey Dillon for most touchdowns scored in a game with 5. The 70 points scored by the team also tied another modern era record, initially set in 2016 in Autzen.
The Dawgs extend their home winning streak to 22 as they head into the bye week with momentum as they get ready to reclaim the Apple Cup in Pullman. Then the (likely) #1 team in the nation comes to Seattle as the Ohio State Buckeyes play in Husky Stadium for the first time.
To the Film –
Note from Coach B: So I can confirm, Awgs and I do read the comment section. While I wanted to start off Film Study by passing along a friendly message to a certain corner of the fan base about vigorous cheering paying off with a 60-point win, Awgs was a voice of reason and moderation. Instead, I’ll just note that I’ve taken into consideration my use of jargon and technical terms. We want Film Study to be digestible for every UW fan while sprinkling in enough to make it interesting and educational. Let me know if I’ve dialed it in better. Constructive feedback is welcomed.
Offense: Explosives & Efficiency
Jedd Fisch’s post-game quote, “… we did what we were supposed to do” was meant to summarize the whole team’s performance, but my thought is that it was most fitting for the offense’s performance. 9 possessions and 9 (offensive) touchdowns isn’t something you see very often. Scoring 10 touchdowns happens from time to time, but even our last 70-pointer against Oregon back in 2016 included five possessions that ended in punts. No disrespect to UC Davis, but when facing a lower tier opponent, the measuring stick becomes more about your team’s ability to execute up to your standards and less about coming away with the victory. Perfection on scoring opportunities is a lofty standard, but it encapsulates Fisch’s expectations for this team.
It wasn’t a vanilla gameplan either. Could we have won by a healthy margin just hammering the ball 80 times? Probably. However, we still mixed in a little bit of everything to get different players involved in all facets of the game and worked on areas that maybe didn’t go as well as expected in Week 1.
1st Quarter – 13:37 – 1st & 10
First up we have the very first offensive play of the game. You can ask Awgs to verify, but when the offense got lined up on this play I called a Split Zone run with Escort Motion like we had hammered in Week 1 for big gains on the ground. The formation and personnel were identical. I mean, just look at this clip below from last week’s Film Study:
Of course, if I honed in on this concept and this look in last week’s Film Study, then of course it was obvious enough for the UC Davis staff to note as well. Playing the game of play caller 4D chess, Fisch and the staff knew they could take advantage of the look with a play action counter move as well.
With the Split Zone run concept being a fairly wide run angle, it’s easy to get the defense flowing hard towards the point of attack, so Fisch’s play action concept takes advantage of it with a bootleg play action look against the flow to set up a Flood passing concept downfield. DeGraaf (#86) sells the Split Zone slice block action then carries it into a route in the flat, Rashid (#3) sells a block to the second level before converting into an intermediate crossing route, and Denzel (#12) runs off the backside CB before breaking into a deep corner. Versions of this play design are common in the Shanahan and McVay offenses that Fisch draws a lot of inspiration from, and it simultaneously gets receivers open quickly by getting defenders out of position (via play action), buys the QB time (via bootleg), simplifies the QB’s read (all routes converge on one side of the field), and attacks three levels of the field (Flood concept is a deep-intermediate-underneath read).
It’s a great play design built off previous tendencies and yields a big gain to Rashid Williams right out of the gates.
1st Quarter – 9:37 – 3rd & 9
Next up, we have a play that made me feel a bit better about both our vertical passing and our dropback passing games. Downfield explosives were minimal against Colorado State in Week 1, but against the right look, Fisch and Demond reminded me that we still got the deep ball in our back pocket.
On this play, we lined up in a 3×1 “Nub” formation with 11 personnel, meaning 3 WRs to one side and 1 TE attached to the formation on the opposite side. One of the benefits of this formation is that it can force the defense to tip their coverage. If all their DBs line up towards the 3 WR side, then it’s probably man coverage and they’re trying to maintain preferred coverage matchups. Fisch seems to like this arrangement in clear passing situations because he used it at least 2-3 times in similar situations against CSU. Every time he’s used this formation in this situation (including on this play) he’s called a 3-man passing concept with a 7-man protection (specifically the whole line is sliding away from the TE with the RB picking up pressure on the backside of the slide), so keep an eye out for that moving forward.
Anyways, back to the play. On this play we’re running a Flood concept, just like the first play. However, this time, we’re running all the routes from the same side of the formation. Dezmen Roebuck (#81) has the route into the flat, Denzel Boston (#12) is running a 15-yard Out route as the intermediate option, and Raiden Vines-Bright (#7) has a deep Corner route as the deep threat.
The Aggies are showing a pressure look pre-snap with only four DBs playing deep, but they bail at the snap into what I think is Cover 3 post-snap. It’s a really well-disguised coverage, and after rewatching the play, I have to think that this was a pure post-snap read by Demond. How else would he have known that #23, who was lined up on the LOS at the snap, was going to be playing deep middle field coverage? He saw the DB bailing hard at the snap, saw that the field side CB and flat zone defender were sticking to Roebuck and Boston, and took the 1v1 deep throw to RVB against an out of position “deep” safety. Great read, great throw, and I have to shout out the OL for providing solid protection against a muddled pre-snap pressure look.
3rd Quarter – 4:48 – 2nd & 3
Last play from the offense for this week, we’ve got Dezmen Roebuck’s first career TD and a glimpse into why the staff’s been so excited about the unheralded freshman out of Arizona.
The result of this play has less to do with scheme/play design than it does execution and individual playmaking that we’ve been looking for out of the WR corps. At it’s core, this is the Touch Pass Jet Sweep play that almost every offense has added to their play sheet over the last five years. The success of the play hinges on two blocks, one against the “force” or contain defender and one against the closest flowing second level defender, and the open field playmaking from the ball carrier. On this play, Adam Mohammed (#24) made the key block against the EDGE to crack open the run lane, and Carver Willis (#50) got just enough of the closest LB to keep the lane open for Roebuck to hit.
After that, it’s all on Roebuck. By my count, the guy made five defenders miss enroute to his touchdown. That’s not something that you see from WRs all the time. In my opinion, that type of open field playmaking ability is innate and uncoachable. Guys either have it or they don’t. The WR specific development drills almost entirely focus on getting open and catching the ball, but they don’t really focus on what to do with the ball after it’s in their hands. Similar things can be said for RBs. You can work with a RB on making cuts, reading the blocking, and protecting the ball, but the vision in the open field, contact balance, and all of that is largely on the player to figure out. The WRs who can make things happen after the catch, like Roebuck on this play, are hard to find, and the ones who have that ability and then pair it with all the other WR skills become stars.
I think Roebuck has that unique blend of talents. He’s still got work to do honing his craft as a true WR, and he doesn’t have prototypical measurables, but he’s got that “it factor” that I’m really excited about.
Defense: Continued Progress & Playmaking
Jumping over the defensive side of the ball, the Week 2 performance was markedly better than the Week 1 performance. There’s always things that can be cleaned up, and I try to highlight some of those things just so you all understand the “why” a certain play might have gone wrong. However, I’ll say it again for emphasis, overall this was a much better performance with guys playing fast and executing well.
1st Quarter – 7:26 – 2nd & 10
In the vein of “things that can be worked on” we have this play from the first quarter. This was really the only play that really stood out to me as a “hmmm, what went wrong there” sort of thing, and while it was a big play that we gave up, it ended up being nearly half of their overall rushing yardage.
Anyways, I picked this play to highlight the potential danger that comes with playing a 5-man front AND a lot of man coverage. I alluded to it in last week’s Film Study and some of the discussions I had with commenters, but man coverage can be a double-edged sword against the run. While it often allows defenses to get an extra man in the box, it can also allow the offense to muddle run fits when they use motion. In this case, UC Davis motioned #23 in from the perimeter to be the Slice block on a Split Zone run concept. We were tipping our hand that we were in man coverage pre-snap since we had Deven Bryant (#17) out wide in coverage. When #23 motioned in, Bryant traveled with him. That motion created run fit confusion between Bryant and Buddah Al-Uqdah (#3), the only other LB at the second level. Was Buddah bumping his gap responsibility over to pick up the potential new gap the motion man was going to create backside? Was Bryant going to follow the motion all the way and take that new gap to leave Buddah handling the interior gaps?
What ended up happening was that both LBs keyed in on the motion and flowed in that direction even though the run and the OL’s flow was heading in the opposite direction. The OL created a crease for the RB to run through, and because both LBs were heading away from the point of attack, there was no one to make the tackle at the line. To make matters worse, Makell Esteen (#24) correctly diagnosed the run and dropped down towards the box at the snap, but he missed the tackle that might’ve prevented the long gain.
So what should you take away from this? One, man coverage can be manipulated by offenses with motion at the snap to create gap responsibility confusion (or at a minimum get guys out of position to make the run fit). Two, the more bodies we add to the line, the fewer we have at the second level to plug gaps as they arise (creating a higher risk/reward situation against the run). Finally, even if we correctly diagnose the play and get bodies into the box, open field tackling is hard to consistently be good at. Once ball carriers get past the line of scrimmage, getting them on the ground becomes exponentially harder, which forces us to circle back to point number two where we can be playing with fire if our fewer second level LBs can’t consistently plug gaps.
2nd Quarter – 14:46 – 1st & 10
On a more positive note, I can confirm. Tacario Davis is a capital “D” Dude. Awgs can attest, as soon as I saw Esteen fly down into the box on the play fake and Davis gave the WR a clean release off the line I threw my hands up and was screaming “WHO’S COVERING THAT GUY” (as if my shouting from the 200 level would do anything). Well it turns out Davis was, and he was covering that guy quite well in retrospect.
Again, this play has less to do with the play design or the scheme and more to do with Davis’ individual effort on the play. He knew where the route was going, he tracked the ball while keeping up with the WR, and he flashed his recovery speed while undercutting the pass for his first interception on Montlake. It’s a great play by Davis. Now, I have no idea if Davis was intentionally baiting the throw, and that might’ve been a huge gain if it was a different QB that zipped the pass a little more, but I’ll take the result and come away happy.
Other Thoughts from Coach B
- I kind of gave it away with the GIF, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a huge shoutout to Jonah Coleman and the OL for another spectacular rushing performance. UW’s had a lot of star running backs over the years, but 5 TDs and consistent chunk yardage stands out no matter the opponent.
- Speaking of Coleman, the OL, and the rushing attack, it’s becoming clear that we’re establishing a much more physical identity on offense compared to last year. This is the second week in a row that we’ve had more rushing attempts than passing ones, as well as had higher rushing production than passing. I’d say that it’s intentional at this point. It helps that we have a revamped, and beefed up, offensive line and a dynamic rushing tandem in the backfield, but it’s also showing in the red zone where we struggled to convert scoring opportunities into touchdowns. Last year we had a red zone touchdown conversion rate of 55% (26/47) and had 14 total rushing touchdowns. So far this year, we are at a 92% (12/13) touchdown conversion rate with 12 total rushing touchdowns. I expect that rate to come back to earth as our schedule ramps up, but we’ve clearly taken a step in the right direction.
- Building off of the offensive trends and identity, I noticed that the play calling is erring on the side of running the ball and efficient, complementary passing. Per Sports Info Solutions, Demond has an average depth of throw through two games of 7.8 yards downfield. That’s up from his 7.0 average in last year’s limited sample size, but for context, Penix was at 9.6 yards downfield and 10.2 yards downfield in 2022 and 2023. It’s not fair to compare Demond to Penix, but it helps to paint the picture of how much less aggressively we’ve been attacking downfield thus far in 2025.
- A contributing factor to the lower average downfield passing could be Demond’s tendency to run for first downs when available. Per Sports Info Solutions, Demond’s scrambled 12 times for 107 yards for 7 first downs so far this season. 3rd downs are usually the situations when QBs are forced to throw downfield, but when a guy can run for the first instead of risking it downfield, it can skew the averages towards those safer passing situations when they aren’t necessarily going deep.
Awgs’ Bonus Play of the Week:
This week’s play goes to Denzel Boston doing his best Rome Odunze vs Cal 2023 impression with this beauty of a punt return TD.