It wasn't Chris Lawson's best game Saturday night against Michigan State in East Lansing.
Yet, nothing could stop Washington's second-year star wide receiver on the final drive in the fourth quarter as he hauled in three crucial late receptions to set up what proved to be a game-winning touchdown to lift the Huskies to a 21-14 win over the Spartans.
His last catch of the night, a 21-yard strike from third-year quarterback Demond Williams Jr., opened the door for veteran running back Jayden Limar to punch in a 1-yard score and, in the process, secure the third consecutive bowl berth for Jedd Fisch after he provided the first two touchdowns of the game for the visitors in the first half.
Lawson, who entered the game seventh in the Big Ten with 80.8
receiving yards per game, finished with a team-high 124 receiving yards to mark his third 100-yard receiving performance of 2026, his third in the last four games and the first multi-touchdown game of his young career.
CHRIS LAWSON AGAIN ‼️ @UW_Football
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The former four-star Archbishop Riordan High School product became the fifth opposing receiver to record a triple-digit receiving yard game against the Spartans this season, following Illinois veteran Hudson Clement, Nebraska third-year Kwazi Gilmer, Notre Dame third-year Micah Gilbert and Toledo fourth-year Adjatay Dabbs, and the first in over a month since Clement's only 100-yard game of the season in a 38-37 overtime win on October 10.
Lawson joins Dabbs as the only receivers to boast 100-plus receiving yards and two touchdowns this season against MSU, another statement performance from the San Francisco, California native but certainly not his last for Fisch, with two more conference games left against Indiana and at Oregon to conclude the regular season.
After Williams Jr. missed on his first deep shot to the 6-foot, 185-pound pass catcher on the Huskies' second drive of the game, the duo connected for a 58-yard strike to level the score at 7-7 just before the end of the first quarter. It marked the longest passing touchdown for the program since Denzel Boston snagged a 78-yarder against Boise State in the LA Bowl and the longest scoring play for the UW offense this season, edging out veteran running back Trey Cooley's 53-yard score at Purdue.
The second-year receiver added his second score on his next catch, which came after a pair of 20-plus-yard catches by Rashid Williams and Decker DeGraaf, on a 17-yard strike from Williams Jr. to put the visitors from Seattle ahead 14-7 with under eight minutes remaining before halftime.
With an already career-best game, from a scoring perspective, Lawson had an uncharacteristic drop on the Huskies' final possession before intermission and only had one target in the third quarter as both UW and MSU struggled to grab hold of momentum in the game.
His first two plays in the fourth quarter, a negative three-yard run and another incompletion, didn't offer much in the way of hope that Lawson would replicate his late-game heroics that lifted UW to its second of now three consecutive road victories at Nebraska.
Foolish as that thought was, Lawson proved any doubters wrong and added an 18-yard and a 10-yard reception on his next two targets prior to delivering his last and most important catch of the game, a 21-yard completion that put the ball at the MSU 1-yard line with just over two minutes remaining.
Lawson is the 12th UW receiver to have three 100-yard receiving games in a single season and the second in back-to-back seasons with Boston also reaching the same total in 2025. Yet, as he showed Saturday night in East Lansing against the Spartans, there's always more damage to deliver against opposing defenses, and he's always up for the challenge.
This article originally appeared on Huskies Wire: Chris Lawson's Third 100-Yard Game Delivers Late Road Win
