Midseason Report: Coleman Is Grade A Running Back

For Husky consistency, this player is second to none this season.

Jonah Coleman dives for a go-ahead TD against Michigan. / Skylar Lin Visuals

On his first carry for the University of Washington football team, Jonah Coleman went over the right side, found a gaping hole, eluded a Weber State tackler and snapped off a 25-yard run.

On the following play, he scored on a 44-yard dash that was negated by penalty, specifically a holding call on tight end Quentin Moore. Coleman ran 16 times for 127 yards and 3 touchdowns in his UW debut.

Against Eastern Michigan, he took his third carry of the game for 64 yards, again finding an opening over the right side, and he didn't stop until getting pushed out of bounds on the opposing 16. With just 11 carries, he piled up 104 yards.

At Rutgers, he broke 39- and 35-yard runs, finding plenty of room to maneuver up the middle and over the left side, on his way to a season-best 148 yards on 16 carries.

While his team has experienced three decidedly bad games this season, Coleman has been rock solid every time out.

He averages nearly 7 yards per carry and almost 100 yards per game. He runs as hard as any UW running back in recent memory, breaking tackles as if it were his birthright. He has 24 runs of 10 yards or more, which is more than three per game, and seven rushes of 25 yards or more.

He magically vaulted over a Northwestern tackler on the way to a 16-yard gain. He powerfully dove over a pile of Michigan defenders for a game-winning touchdown.

At the midseason mark for the UW, Coleman as much as anyone on this football team deserves an A grade. He's been that good. If only everyone else around him was as productive as this 5-foot-9, 229-pound junior from Stockton, California, think where these Huskies might be.

Jonah Coleman celebrates his Michigan TD with Denzel Boston, who had one of his own against the Wolverines. / Skylar Lin Visuals

While some worried whether the UW could get a running game going with an all-new, patched-up offensive line, Coleman basically said, 'Who needs a line?"

If anything he's made his blockers look better, rather than the other way around.

The only concern is he's such a punishing back, UW coach Jedd Fisch worries that he'll wear down in time. So Fisch has made sure Coleman takes a number of series off and comes out before or during the fourth quarter if the game is already decided, which is what happened in the decisive win over Eastern Michigan and lopsided loss at Iowa.

"My body feels good," the thick-chested Coleman said after rushing for 80 yards on a season-low 9 totes in the 40-16 loss to the Hawkeyes in Iowa City.

"When it was 31-10 in the fourth quarter with like 12 minutes, it was as that time I said let's get Jonah healthy for the second half of the year. ... If the game was a little more normal, Jonah would have had 15 to18 carries," Fisch said.

As he now takes a week off, Coleman ranks No. 10 in the country with 681 yards on 99 carries, with his rushes numbering anywhere from 8 to 56 fewer than all nine of the players ahead of him. He does more with less.

This one-time Arizona transfer, who was the first player to follow Fisch to the UW, makes this happen while sharing multiple series each game with sixth-year senior Cam Davis and promising freshman Adam Mohammed. He does this while catching 16 passes for 124 yards, giving him a chance to show off his versatility.

While Coleman's rushing efforts might be squandered some in what could be a break-even rebuilding season for the Huskies, he'll no doubt finish strong and then likely turn around and provide the same sort of production or better in 2025 as a senior for surely a more capable UW football team.

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