The Washington Huskies took 30 minutes and a drive to knock off the rust against future Pac-12 member Colorado State. as UW extended the nation’s second-longest home winning streak to twenty-one in the 38-21  victory.

The Rams were able to hang with UW for the entire first half, as they were able to find weaknesses against the Husky defense, but the offense shot itself in the foot, leading to only two scores at half.

The offense was overall much improved from what Husky fans saw last year. Demond Williams looks to be the real deal after throwing for 226 yards and running for another 68. Jonah Coleman was impossible to contain, as he added another 177 on the ground to go along with two of the four rushing touchdowns on the evening.

Denzel Boston had the play of the game in the corner of the lakeside end zone late in the third quarter and went up 7 points, starting the rout in the remaining 18 minutes.

The biggest offensive area of improvement was the in the trenches. The Huskies only played six offensive linemen all night, with all the starters playing the entirety of the game except for the rotation of true freshman John Mills and redshirt freshman Paki Finau. Both were productive throughout the night, but some miscommunications led to a couple of drive-killing mistakes.

The most glaring issue was the lone turnover committed by Washington when Landen Hatchett snapped the ball before Demond Williams was ready.  The ball bounced off of the second year QB, leading to a fumble recovery by the Rams. The fumble took away a good chance at points, as the Huskies were already on the edge of field-goal range at the Colorado State 31-yard line. The Rams were able to march down the field to tie the game going into halftime.

While the fumble was the worst-case scenario, there was another communication miscue between the two when Williams tried to get the ball snapped while CSU had 12 men on the field. The Ram coaching staff was able to get a timeout called before the ball was snapped.

The good news: the communication issues were fixed in the second half. Hatchett and Williams were able to catch the Rams with 12 men on the field near the goal line. The O-line gave up three sacks in the contest, but only one in the second half.

Overall, this was a breath of fresh air for the program, as the O-line looks to be at worst an average line and at best a position of strength—a vast improvement over 2024.

Listen to Warren Mainard and Mike Martin discuss Washington’s 38-21 victory over Colorado State.