Washington dropped their second game in a row, losing 25-21 at No. 18 USC on Saturday, but the Huskies look like they've found a groove on the ground.
Freshman running back Brian Bonner Jr. took control of the backfield, carrying every handoff and all but one non-Demond Williams Jr. run (tight end/fullback Kade Eldridge took a direct snap for a 1-yard touchdown in the second quarter) and totaling Washington's best individual rushing performance of the season with 19 carries for 89 yards. The fact that it also came against the second-best run defense the Huskies have played this season - USC came into the week ranked No. 51 in rushing yards allowed per game, while Minnesota was No. 29 - and the clear strength of the Trojans' defense is an encouraging
sign for where Washington might be able to get this running game.
The Huskies are missing their top three running backs until at least November, so Bonner's emergence is also crucial for Washington's continued survival against a Big Ten schedule. Third-year Jordan Washington went down with a neck injury during spring practice and sounds like he will miss the entire season based on Jedd Fisch's comments about him earlier in the week. Fourth-year Jayden Limar and second-year Quaid Carr were both injured against Washington State and were seen in slings ahead of the Utah State game and will be re-evaluated on November 1.
For the last three weeks, Bonner has split carries with sixth-year Trey Cooley, who has managed only 2.2 yards per carry and fumbled twice against Minnesota. Cooley played only six reps on Saturday, however, compared to 50 snaps for Bonner and 1 for walk-on Ryken Moon, who lost a pass blocking assignment on a third down Williams sack in his only rep.
"Brian played amazing," Williams said of the first-year back out of nearby Valencia High School. "Told him he was made for moments like this and for him to go out there and play at the level he played at, so proud of everything he's done.
Bonner has looked like Washington's most explosive runner even when Limar and Carr were healthy, though, and entered Saturday's game leading the Huskies in yards per carry average at 5.7. That number was buoyed a bit by a 55-yard run against Eastern Washington, but the freshman had no such run to inflate his numbers on Saturday. Bonner's longest carry went for 16 yards, but he also found runs of 8, 13, and 9 on his seventh, eighth, and ninth carries of the evening. That efficiency helped Washington face four third downs of 4 yards or less, but the rest of the Huskies offense struggled and was unable to convert any of those chances.
Fisch has said that he doesn't necessarily want Washington to lead the country in rushing, so a team total of 116 yards seems like a perfectly fine number for the Huskies offense to hit if they can reach it every week. Williams will also not be held to 26 rushing yards (including four sacks) every week and center Landen Hatchett is due back from a wrist injury as soon as next week, so Washington may be able to pump that number up closer to a goal of 150, which would take the Huskies from No. 124 in rushing yards per game to about No. 89. For an offense that entered Saturday No. 25 in passing offense per game with 288.5 yards per game, that feels like a reasonable, functional place to be
"I'm really proud of him," Fisch said on Saturday.
"I don't want to sound like the proud dad type thing, but, you know, Brian's young and fun to be around and learning. And I think if you're a typical 18-year-old kid that's on social media a lot, you've been told for a few weeks that you can't run the ball, that we're not running the ball, and he just kept getting better and better and better, and today he goes out there, runs it for (89) yards, and runs really hard, and was able to ignore any noise and recognize, and said, 'Hey, man, this is my first year of doing this, and I'm learning the reads as we go, and as I'm going, I'm seeing somebody lose later, win late,' and it gave us a lot of confidence in moving the ball and calling plays because we had a back back there this week that felt really comfortable running the football and confident."
That's more than Washington could say before this week, and probably a pretty good outcome for a team down to its fourth running back and only four healthy scholarship players at the position.
This article originally appeared on Huskies Wire: Washington's run game shows signs of life behind Brian Bonner Jr.
