The Washington Huskies started three true freshmen on defense in their 24-10 Apple Cup win on Saturday, a fact that surprised some when the two-deep depth chart was released earlier this week. Defensive tackle Derek Colman-Brusa was the No. 158 player in the country and listed as an edge, but was the Huskies' third-highest-rated defensive recruit in the 2026 class.
Edge rusher Ramzak Fruean just barely edged his way into being a four-star as the No. 293 player in the country, but was listed at linebacker and didn't commit until December after a brief pledge to UCLA. Cornerback Jeron Jones was the lowest-rated four-star in the class, clocking in at No. 438, and was the second-highest-rated cornerback in the class.
And yet, Saturday showed why the
Huskies haven't been able to keep their freshman trio off the field.
After Fruean jumped offside on a second-and-12 deep in Washington State's territory in the second quarter, he responded with a hit to Washington State quarterback Caden Pinnick's arm that forced an incompletion. On third down, Colman-Brusa came free on a looping rush around the edge and batted Pinnick's pass into the arms of Jones, who returned it 9 yards to put the Huskies on Washington State's 21-yard line.
Freshman Jeron Jones comes away with the INT for Washington!
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) September 6, 2026
📺: Washington State at #17 Washington on NBC & Peacock pic.twitter.com/xFpPa7ajg3
Washington scored their first touchdown of the season on a 5-yard Demond Williams Jr. run five plays later.
"He's got really good ball skills. He's got a really good feel of the game, and he is that kind of personality that one play doesn't affect the other. So he has that goldfish memory that you look for as a DB, right? It's a short-term memory; it's 'next play', 'next play'. He's able to just go out there, regardless of the call, regardless of the stage; it felt to me that he was going to be ready to roll, and I thought he did that." Fisch said of Jones after the game.
Colman-Brusa and Fruean finished the game tied for the team lead with 2 pressures of Pinnick apiece. Colman-Brusa was also tied for third on the team with 3 run-play tackles, according to the unofficial numbers released by Pro Football Focus after the game.
"I think all of them realize there's a difference between high school and college. I also feel like they didn't make it too big. They were able to play within themselves. I didn't see that one of them was not able to handle the stage, and that stage was pretty big. Opening day, when you play for the Apple Cup, and you play the in-state rival. It's different, you know, when you're playing a game, and it's just a game against an out-of-conference opponent. But to be a true freshman and handle themselves the way they did, I thought was pretty special." Fisch said of the group as a whole, including freshman offensive tackle Kodi Greene, who started for the Huskies as well.
Fruean did accrue a late hit out of bounds in the third quarter to add to an eventual 130 yards of penalties from the Huskies, but Fisch said that he expects his young edge rusher to learn from those plays and continue to grow.
Colman-Brusa finished the game with 3 tackles, a tackle for loss in the second quarter, and the pass breakup that led to Jones' interception in 28 snaps. Jones played 25 snaps, totaling 2 tackles and that second-quarter interception. Fruean played 22 snaps and had 3 tackles and the pass breakup before Colman-Brusa's in the second quarter.
All three freshmen were part of heavy rotations on Saturday - despite drawing the start, Colman-Brusa played 5 fewer snaps than backup Darin Conley. Fruean played 9 fewer snaps than Isaiah Ward, who was not on the two-deep due to an injury that limited him in fall camp, and Jones played 18 fewer snaps than co-starter Rahshawn Clark in the nickel (all three also had snaps where they played alongside their de facto backups or co-starters). But none of Washington's other 18 defenders who saw defensive action on Saturday were freshmen despite the Huskies boasting a robust 13-player freshman class on defense.
And, for a Ryan Walters defense that shut out Washington State for 49 minutes and 45 seconds and held the Cougars to their lowest scoring output in the Apple Cup in a decade, having the ability to turn to three freshmen who look the part early on could wind up being the X-factor for the Huskies defense this season. That has already begun to come to pass with Jones and Clark sharing the field, with Clark aligned as a third safety in dime looks to allow Alex McLaughlin or Rylan Dillard-Allen to walk down into the box. Walters also aligned edge rusher Logan George over a slot receiver in an exotic pressure look in the second quarter, but Washington can also now build upon that look by putting Fruean in that spot and dropping him into coverage given his background as a stack linebacker.
That versatility is part of the reason the Huskies finished with a 28 percent havoc rate on Saturday, a 98th percentile number according to Game on Paper. That rate in the first half, before Washington began to self-immolate due to penalties, was a whopping 44 percent.
With this freshman trio growing into the defense, the Huskies should be one of the most exciting defenses in the country for the rest of the season.
This article originally appeared on Huskies Wire: Freshman trio shines for dominant Washington defense in Apple Cup win
