Inside The Huskies

Demond Williams Jr.'s QB Coronation: Oregon Was the Start

The freshman signal-caller drew his first game-opening assignment in Eugene.
Dan Raley|
Demond Williams Jr. is shown in his first start against Oregon.
Demond Williams Jr. is shown in his first start against Oregon. | Skylar Lin Visuals

For two weeks, coach Jedd Fisch vowed he wouldn't reveal his starting quarterback for the Washington-Oregon football game until the very last minute. It was the big secret that wasn't really a secret at all.

No one from Seattle to Eugene expected to see anyone other than Demond Williams Jr. line up behind center for the Huskies.

With the Ducks ranked No. 1 in the polls and fervently pursuing a national championship that wouldn't happen, the UW went all in behind the scenes over a bye week and more and resolutely turned the offense over to the 5-foot-11, 187-pound freshman from Chandler, Arizona, for this trip to Autzen Stadium.

To outsiders, this transfer of power had been close to a month in the making, with the Huskies giving Williams more and more autonomy once the season began to slip with a series of one-sided Big Ten losses on the road.

In relief of a struggling Will Rogers, the Mississippi State transfer and UW senior signal-caller, Williams played the entire second half of a game at Penn State and the last quarter and a half against UCLA at home leading up this Oregon game. These were all increasing signs pointing to a more permanent position change.

With Fisch in charge, it all seemed a little preordained anyway that at some point during his first season in Montlake the coach would turn everything over to his hand-picked quarterback and attention would shift to the future. It was just a matter of when.

Freshman quarterback Demond Williams Jr. signals first down at Oregon.
Freshman quarterback Demond Williams Jr. signals first down at Oregon. | 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 12th installment. This was that all-important first start, that ended up as 49-21 Oregon victory.

"I thought I did OK," the youngster said afterward in a postgame interview session in a tent set up outside of the stadium. "I definitely felt ready to play."

At Oregon, Williams came out early dressed in black sweats rather than the Huskies' all-white uniform that was the chosen game-day attire and he went through his pregame routine of various stretches and tossed the football around to get loose.

Demond Williams Jr. warms up face Oregon in his first start.
Demond Williams Jr. warms up face Oregon in his first start. | Skylar Lin Visuals

It wasn't until a half hour before kickoff that Williams took definitive snaps with the No. 1 offense, with reserve players standing in a tightly bunched line trying to shield anyone at ground level from seeing this, and the quarterback order was confirmed.

While Ducks took the opening kickoff and scored with no trouble, Williams came out on his first play and threw deep to Jeremiah Hunter, hitting him for a 34-yard gain. It was an encouraging start for the young guy. He moved his team to the 8 before the UW settled for Grady Gross' 26-yard field goal and trailed 7-3.

After trading punts, cornerback Thaddeus Dixon put a big hit on Oregon running back Noah Whittington and caused a fumble that Lance Holtzclaw recovered on on the Ducks' 23. However, Williams got sacked twice in three plays and Gross kicked a 41-yard field goal, pulling the Huskies within 7-6.

With 9:44 left to play in the first half, Williams had done his job and kept his team close.

Then the Huskies collectively gave it all away at Autzen to a far superior team.

Oregon scored three times in the space of four and a half minutes -- and the Ducks were well down the road with a 28-6 advantage.

To Williams' credit, he kept battling. He took the Huskies 75 yards in 11 plays for Jonah Coleman's 1-yard touchdown run to close the half. On that drive, he threw passes of 23, 11 and 12 to each of his top receivers in Glles Jackson, Hunter and Denzel Boston, in that order, using everybody he had on that drive. He hit Boston with a two-point conversion pass and UW trailed 28-14 at the break.

Williams, however, didn't get much help from his Husky offensive line. It was a physical mismatch up front and the resulsts were disastrous The freshman quarterback got sacked a whopping if not embarrassing 10 times, five times alone in the third quarter. Unable to get much done, he had three consecutive second-half drives end with punts.

For his final series, Williams finally got some protection and calmly guided the Huskies on a another 75-yard drive, this time finding Jackson for a 28-yard touchdown pass with a 1:43 remaining in the game.

Demond Williams Jr. deals with one of his 10 sacks against Oregon.
Demond Williams Jr. deals with one of his 10 sacks against Oregon. | Skylar Lin Visuals

Even while running for his life much of this outing, Jackson completed 17 of 20 passes for 201 yards and the Jackson TD, and rushed for a net 17 yards on 22 carries, gaining 69 yards yet losing 52 largely because of all of those sacks.

"He has three years with us so it was the right time to get him going," Fisch said, no longer needing to hide his starting quarterback from view for those upcoming seasons if he can help it.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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