Inside The Huskies

Former Arizona RB Coleman Posts Video of Montlake Entrance

The Wildcats' leading rusher was one of the first to enter the transfer portal after the team's coaching change.

Dan Raley

In this story:

Jonah Coleman arrived at Husky Stadium on Friday night, live-streaming his entrance as he came through the lobby below the coaches' offices.

The former Arizona running back's visit, whether he commits from the transfer portal or not, represented symbolic hope for a University of Washington football program that has had nearly two dozen players go out the door and no one figuratively re-enter following the coaching change from Kalen DeBoer to Jedd Fisch.

As the weekend began, the 5-foot-9, 225-pound junior from Stockton, California, showed up on a recruiting visit, to be pitched by his former coach and staff.

It won't necessarily be an automatic sell — Coleman likely wasn't wearing flip flops as he might have been in Tucson. Seattle was a cool 44 degrees at the time of his Northwest visit compared to a balmy 74 in the desert. Yet he had traveled to the UW, with familiar lobby mannequins wearing different colored Husky uniforms in the background in his video.

The last time Coleman presumably visited Husky Stadium was in 2022, when he scored on a 3-yard touchdown run to pull Arizona within 28-21 in the third quarter before the Wildcats lost 49-39.

Once Fisch took the UW job, Coleman was one of the first Wildcats player in the portal. He comes off a sophomore showing in which he led his team in rushing with 128 carries for 892 yards and 5 scores, and earned All-Pac-12 honorable-mention accolades. He started five of 13 games as one of three Wildcats backs who opened games for Fisch.

Coleman, who appeared to be accompanied by former Arizona starting cornerback Tacario Davis in the video, was at his best this past season in rushing 11 times for 179 yards against Colorado in Boulder and 22 times for 145 yards against USC in Los Angeles. He had a 3-touchdown outing against Washington State in Pullman. Obviously, he was good on the road.

While he has demonstrated decent quickness, one of the attractions to Coleman is he didn't fumble this past season.

On Friday, nearly a dozen high school football players posted on social media how they had received UW offers, the first signs of the new coaching staff at work.

At the same time Coleman was in Seattle on Friday, Arizona booster Humberto Lopez was making multiple claims in Tucson regarding the coaching change. He told media outlets how he had a handshake agreement from Fisch that the coach wouldn't leave. 

Lopez also allegedly accused the former Arizona staff of improperly contacting Wildcats quarterback Noah Fifita and wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan and trying to convince the program pillars to transfer — neither player currently is in the portal.

What Lopez will find, whether or not Fisch's staff did anything questionable, is few rules exist in the transfer portal these days, with the process a talent free-for-all with no bounds.

Go to si.com/college/washington to read the latest Inside the Huskies stories — as soon as they’re published. Not all stories are posted on the fan sites.

Find Inside the Huskies on Facebook by searching: Inside Huskies/FanNation at SI.com or https://www.facebook.com/dan.raley.12

Follow Dan Raley of Inside the Huskies on Twitter: @DanRaley1 or @UWFanNation or @DanRaley3

Have a question, direct message me on Facebook or Twitter.

Published
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.

Home/Football