Inside The Huskies

One of Nation's Best? PFF Concurs with UW Coach on Jonah Coleman

The veteran running back comes to Seattle with versatile skills.

Dan Raley

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The first time the University of Washington football team encountered running back Jonah Coleman in 2022, he ran out of shotgun formation multiple times, provided a 3-yard touchdown scamper and threw a 2-point conversion pass in Arizona's 49-39 loss at Husky Stadium.

Last season in a rematch against the UW, Coleman accepted three more shotgun snaps and caught 33- and 14-yard passes among his many duties in the Wildcats' 31-24 defeat in Tucson.

The 5-foot-9, 225-pound junior from Stockton, California, showed the Huskies he can do a little of everything before he joined them last month from the transfer portal, following coach Jedd Fisch to Montlake.

The UW actually got off easy, with Coleman saving his best for Colorado and USC last season by rushing for 179 and 143 yards against them, respectively.

All of this has led Fisch to conclude the following, "Jonah Coleman, I believe, is one of the best running backs in the country."

While some might consider that coaching hyperbole, especially for someone who finished last season with 892 yards rushing, Pro Football Focus recently backed the coach's assertion by showing Coleman to be the highest-graded transfer running back nationally. 

PFF gave him a 91.3 grade — based on factors such as starting, elusiveness, power, durability and run blocking — which placed him well above the next closest runner in Quinshon Judkins, who scored 83.3 as he moved from Mississippi to Ohio State.

Others on the PFF list were Tawee Walker, who went from Oklahoma to Wisconsin, 82.6; Trevor Etienne, from Florida to Georgia, 82.1; Ja'Quinden Jackson, from Utah to Arkansas, 82.1; Jo'quavious Marks, from Mississippi State to USC, 82.0; Don Chaney Jr., from Miami to Louisville, 79.9; Logan Diggs, from LSU to Mississippi, 78.2; Jordan Waters, from Duke to North Carolina State, 77.5; and Treshaun Ward, from Kansas State to Boston College, 77.5.

Coleman comes to the Huskies after rushing 128 times for a 6.8- yards per carry average and 5 touchdowns last season, topping Arizona with his 892 total and ranking seventh in the Pac-12. For a 10-3 Arizona team that beat Oklahoma in the Alamo Bowl, Coleman also finished with 25 receptions for 283 yards and a score.

"He made a huge impact in our program," Fisch said. "He's an unbelievable pass-catcher. He understands protection, he loves the game of football and he can run the ball at the highest level."

Coleman, who was named All-Pac-12 honorable mention and has two seasons of eligibility remaining, stands to become the Huskies' third consecutive starting running back pulled from the transfer portal following Virginia's Wayne Taulapapa and Mississippi State's Dillon Johnson, with the others proving highly productive in Seattle.

In 2022, the 5-foot-11, 207-pound Taulapapa was a season-long UW starter who rushed 140 times for a team-best 887 yards and 11 touchdowns, and caught 24 passes for 225 yards and another score. He was named All-Pac-12 honorable mention.

This past season, the 6-foot, 218-pound Johnson started all but one of 15 Husky games, carried the ball 233 times for a team-high 1,195 yards and 16 TDs, and caught 24 balls for 190 yards. He was a second-team All-Pac-12 selection.

Coleman appears to have all of the football chops to hang with those guys as a lead Husky running back. Both his coach and PFF are in agreement on this.

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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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