Washington will at least entertain a change at quarterback even when Demond Williams Jr. is healed from a rib injury.
Huskies head coach Jedd Fisch said on Monday that backup Elijah Brown will split first-team reps with Williams this week while Washington is on a bye, and then they will decide who will start at Nebraska on Halloween night.
"He did enough to be considered," Fisch said of Brown. "We'll see how Demond does over this week physically and medically, and then we'll make a decision (in) probably a week or so, how we want to proceed. But I certainly believe that in the six quarters he's played, he certainly has earned consideration."
Brown has completed 49 of his 66 passes in those six quarters for 6 touchdowns and 3 interceptions, all
of which came against Purdue. While not the rushing threat Williams is, the offense has largely operated on time with the third-year Stanford transfer in the game, and Washington has seen the playmaking abilities of wide receivers Dezmen Roebuck and Chris Lawson shine - those two combined for 137 yards after the catch against Purdue.
This is the most definitive Fisch has ever been about potentially moving Williams, who Washington fought tooth and nail in January to keep out of the transfer portal in a story that made national headlines, to a bench role. When the third-year passer was injured initially against Iowa, Fisch told the media that he wanted to wait to see what Williams' medical status was before making any more comments about whether or not Brown gave the Huskies a better chance to win.
With that time, and knowing Williams was a long shot to play against Purdue, Fisch then declined to offer what his hypothetical bar would be for Brown to seize the opportunity and keep Williams on the bench, citing a desire to keep additional pressure off both of his quarterbacks. After Brown led the Huskies to their Big Ten win last Friday, Fisch then told reporters after the game that he wanted to enjoy the win with the team before evaluating which way the Huskies would go moving forward.
It's a difficult decision for Washington, and for Fisch. Williams was handpicked by this staff to be the starter when Fisch was at Arizona, and the fact that Williams followed them to Montlake and that the Huskies had a coordinated plan to get him game experience as a freshman in 2024 was clear evidence that they saw tremendous upside from him. 2025 showed that upside more consistently, enough so that January's debacle was predicated on other schools around the country seeing the same potential that Fisch had.
The result - an ugly public fallout that left many fans uneager to watch Williams play at all, feeling as though he was only in Seattle because his contract said he had to be, what many of those same fans felt to be an underwhelming decision to take him back and try to move on from the situation, and a reported NIL figure in the $4 million range - left Washington in a strange place to begin the season. Moving to Brown now, after Williams has not taken the step forward most people thought he could, would be an admission that perhaps all that offseason drama did matter, after all.
On the other hand, for a player Washington has poured so much into, benching Williams - a team captain who was active on the sidelines on Friday and who both Brown and Fisch praised for his presence after the game - for getting injured might feel a bit unfair to those in the building. Perhaps the solution will be to start Williams, but with a shorter leash and Brown waiting in the wings. The Huskies' offense has looked different in general since Brown came in, including what felt like the best game plan of the season last Friday, so perhaps it is worth seeing if Williams can execute on some of those new twists on the offense before giving up completely. But you could also argue that the offense looks different precisely because Williams is not the one operating it.
Washington head coach Jedd Fisch says Elijah Brown has done enough to "be considered" as the starting QB when Demond Williams Jr. is healthy. wants to see how Williams progresses this week as he works back from a rib injury before making a definitive decision
— alex katson 🇯🇵 (@alexkatson) October 19, 2026
It's a messy problem, but it is at least one that comes at a convenient time. The bye week will give Washington the time it needs to evaluate what the best path is moving forward, one that will likely be laid out by Fisch when he is next available to the media next Monday.
"I mean, I hate to say this because I would tell you that every position's a competition. I would say right now, we're in a spot where Demond is working his way back from injury, and Elijah has played the last six quarters," Fisch said when asked if the quarterback spot could be characterized as a competition.
Whoever gets the nod will have to march into a sold-out Nebraska blackout game and try to get Washington a win in one of their more winnable games left on the schedule as the Huskies try to get bowl-eligible.
This article originally appeared on Huskies Wire: Jedd Fisch considering a QB competition for Washington football
