Demond Williams Jr.'s QB Coronation: He Had Magic for Michigan

Steadfast for the first five games, freshman quarterback Demond Williams Jr. received kid-glove treatment. Jedd Fisch's University of Washington coaching staff preferred to ease him into different scenarios in an introductory fashion, bent on gradually acclimating him to big-time college football.

Against Michigan, all protective guard rails came off for the first-year player, at least for one play. It was time to unleash his playmaking abilities in the biggest game on the schedule -- against the defending national champions at Husky Stadium.

Early in the second quarter at the UW 47, coming two plays into the Huskies' fourth drive, with an Alice In Chains song pulsating through the public-address system, Williams entered the game for the first time.

At wide receiver, of all places.

He wasn't all that much of a secret weapon either. He lined up on the right sideline, in plain view of the Michigan bench.

Then the fun began. Senior quarterback Will Rogers took the shotgun snapped, turned to his right and fired the ball at a backward angle to Williams, making it a lateral.

Gathering in the ball, Williams set himself and with great precision he rifled a strike back in the other direction, over Rogers' head, covering roughly 50 yards, and into the hands of Cam Davis, a wide-open running back on the north sideline.

Davis scampered 37 yards to the Michigan 16. The Wolverines were so stunned by this bit of deception, coming from a fearless freshman to shake things up, they gave up a touchdown on the next play, on a pass from Rogers to Giles Jackson at the right pylon, to put the UW ahead 14-0.

"He was excited about it," coach Jedd Fisch said of the heady freshman on the double-pass play. "He loves the opportunity to have the ball in his hands, I would say. He's a play-maker."

Demond Williams Jr. tries to get around the corner against Michigan. | Skylar Lin Visuals

With all of the growing interest currently surrounding Williams following his two late-season starts and a sensational Sun Bowl performance, we're taking a look back at each of his 13 freshman appearances and what happened. This is the sixth installment.

Williams didn't make another appearance against the Wolverines until late in the third quarter, when he came out for a drive that began at the UW 44. Yet he was back into a dedicated job-share with Rogers. Williams ran for 8 yards, then 3, and gave the reins back to the senior quarterback.

Rogers called three plays before stepping aside once more for Williams, who threw a 6-yard pass to Jeremiah Hunter, ran for 9 yards, handed the ball to Adam Mohammed for a yard and got sacked on first-and-goal from the 10.

This brought Rogers back for his own 9-yard sack and a 9-yard pass to tight end Keleki Latu before the UW settled for Grady Gross' 29-yard field goal to tie the game at 17 with 13:38 left to play.

Williams wasn't quite done. With the Huskies nursing a 24-17 lead following a Kam Fabiculanan interception at the Michigan 41 with 3:24 remaining in the game, the freshman quarterback went out to take the first snap of the drive, and first snap only, and ran for a yard before giving way to Rogers the rest of the way.

"I feel very, very confident when he goes in the game that we can call what we want to call," Fisch said of Williams.

The youngster finished with 2-for-2 passing for 44 yards and five rushes for 20 yards, not a real heavy workload, but enough theatrics to make Michigan remember him.

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