Washington Huskies Head Coach Explains Reasoning For Sticking With Demond Williams Jr. as Starter

The Washington Huskies football team's "quarterback controversy" seems firmly behind the team.

The Huskies will play the Michigan State Spartans at 1:15 p.m. PT on Saturday at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Mich., and third-year Demond Williams Jr. will be the team's primary signal-caller.

Williams entered the year as the team's starting quarterback for the second-straight season. Last year, he was backed up by Tulane Green Wave transfer Kai Horton. This year, his No. 2 was Stanford Cardinal transfer and fellow third-year Elijah Brown.

Williams, who led the Big Ten in total yardage last year (3,676 total yards) struggled when the schedule turned towards conference opponents. He was knocked out of action with a rib fracture in the team's 41-24 loss to the Iowa Hawkeyes on Oct. 9.

Brown stepped into the game and played well in the second half and threw three touchdowns. Williams was out of action the following week and Brown led UW to a 38-26 win over the Purdue Boilermakers on Oct. 16.

Brown again started against the Nebraska Cornhuskers on Oct. 31, but was subbed out for Williams in the fourth quarter. The latter of the two led Washington to a go-ahead drive in the fourth quarter in what became a 17-10 win for the Huskies.

Williams was named the starter for the team's game back at home at Husky Stadium (now-Columbia Bank Stadium) against the Penn State Nittany Lions.

Williams started slow against the Nittany Lions but finished strong. He helped guide Washington to 19 unanswered points in the second half, but the team ultimately lost 28-25, dropping to 5-4 on the season (2-4 in Big Ten play).

For the season, Williams has completed 64.5% of his passes for 1,667 yards, 11 touchdowns and four interceptions in eight games (two he registered less than a half of playing time in). He's ran 73 times for 254 yards and two touchdowns.

Brown has completed 70.7% of his passes for 774 yards, seven touchdowns and three picks this year and has ran seven times for -46 yards. He's played four games this year, just one across all four quarters.

If both quarterbacks remain healthy for the rest of the year, it seems that Williams will continue to get the nod as the starter.

In a weekly news conference held via Zoom on Thursday, UW head coach Jedd Fisch expanded his reasoning, mentioning Williams' athleticism and ability to extend plays as a boost to the team.

"I think by just looking at the totality of the product, looking at how we finished our game against Nebraska, how we finished our game against Penn State, I think that, offensively, there some plays that Demond made that are pretty hard to make," Fisch said. "And whether it was the two-point play to make it a three-point game, whether it was a couple of conversions with his legs, whether it was the throw up to (Dezmen Roebuck) on the sprint-out or seeing (Baron Naone) on the (other touchdown), there's just an overall sense at this point in time (with) the way he's played. ... We need to get started quicker, but I do feel like there was nothing that put us in a position that wouldn't tell me that (Williams) gave us the best chance to win last week and we're going to go with that same thought process (against Michigan State)."