Is it Demond’s time? Brock weighs in on UW Huskies’ QB conundrum

Is it time for the UW Huskies to give the reins to freshman quarterback Demond Williams Jr.? Bye week intrigue is a gift when it comes to conversation, and that gift was unwrapped by Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Washington Wednesday.

UW Huskies Notebook: Is Demond Williams Jr. now the answer at QB?

“This has just kind of been simmering all season long,” said FOX college football analyst Brock Huard, a former Huskies quarterback himself.

On one side, the incumbent: senior quarterback Will Rogers, who arrived at the UW having established multiple SEC passing records before transferring from Mississippi State.

Huard pointed out that Rogers brings experience, knows the system inside-out, has seen everything and is beyond getting rattled. Rogers has set the team up for success outside of a 35-6 loss at No. 4 Penn State, being able to not let games get away from the Huskies. He has been a quarterback that his head coach has been comfortable giving the ball to. No easy feat with a team in transition.

On the other side, the freshman Williams, who Huard called “the young dynamo.”

“He’s small, but there’s some Russell (Wilson) to his arm,” he said. “He’s got a powerful arm. He’s unbelievably fast. Maybe one of the fastest guys on the team.”

Huard noted the “electric” Williams made a big first in-person impression in the spring that sparked the imagination. Summer practices, however, exposed the reality of the experience gap.

“Training camp came and you felt he was overwhelmed,” Huard said. “Just with the whole breadth of the playbook and all that you know is in this pro-style system, and you saw him slow down. You saw him really struggle in scrimmages. You saw him turn it over and it was like, no, we’ll find a way to to use him, but there is no way that he can start Week 1.”

Head coach Jedd Fisch has found ways to use Williams and get him experience playing meaningful minutes. His development has been a progression towards assuming the quarterback position full-time. The question of how to get him there was perhaps solved when a struggling Rogers opened the door last Friday in an important 31-19 win against UCLA.

“For Jedd Fish, after back-to-back interceptions by Will Rogers, not hard stuff to see… Yeah, it was time to go with the young guy,” Huard said.

If it was the final exam for Williams, it would appear he passed with flying colors, leading the Huskies to a win that earned them bowl eligibility when only a date at No. 1 Oregon was left on the schedule.

“You felt his presence, and UCLA felt it,” Huard said. “They were like, whoa, this is a little different. You know, I’m getting home (pressuring the quarterback), but I’m not getting home. I’m impacting the pocket like I did with Will, but it’s not affecting (Williams) because he’s scrambling outside of it.”

Who gets the ball in Eugene?

For his part, Fisch is not tipping his cards when it comes to who will start the Nov. 30 game against Oregon.

“We will not announce anything,” Fisch said Monday during his weekly press conference. “We will not announce who the starting quarterback is going to be and we’ll go out there a week from Saturday when we play Oregon and play with one of the two quarterbacks.”

Huard and co-host Mike Salk agreed that all signs point to Williams – and that if is the move, the job likely will not be shared.

“He’s already shown that if (Rogers) makes a couple of mistakes, he’s itchy almost to go to the kid,” Salk said of Fisch. “If Will Rogers makes mistakes, yeah, there’s no point in having him play. I mean, that’s his thing is that he’s not going make any mistakes and be more of the game manager – and I don’t use that as a derogatory term at all. But if he’s not managing the game well and he’s giving the ball away, he doesn’t have the upside that the other kid has. You might as well let the other kid at least have some upside and some big plays that come with a few mistakes of youth.”

Huard compared what the two different quarterbacks bring to the table.

“How about game facilitator? He’s got to be the game facilitator,” Huard said of Rogers. “If he’s not, well, the other kid can be a game igniter. He can ignite things with people around him, he can influence in so many different ways. And against a team that’s got NFL dudes at every level of that defense and NFL size and length and speed, all the things that the Oregon Ducks have, and in their building that’s just unbelievably electric – you want the ball moving and, on top of it, ball security. That’s the thing that I’ve been impressed with Demond is three touchdowns, no picks.”

It’s not every day you see a true freshman make his first start against the No. 1 team in the the nation on their home turf, but that very well could be what happens. Will a change give the Huskies a chance? Let’s just say they will probably have to settle for the little victories.

“The line of scrimmage is so challenged in this, It would be hard pressed for me to believe,” Huard said. “They’ll be 20-something-point underdogs at least, and a big, big challenge. But I do think at least Demond gives you a a spark and certainly some opportunity to prepare for what’s to come down the road.”

Listen to the full conversation in the podcast at this link or in the player near the top of this post. Catch Brock and Salk from 6-10 a.m. weekdays on Seattle Sports. Huard will also talk about Demond Williams Jr. as the potential UW Huskies starter against No. 1 Oregon in this week’s edition of Dawg Talk, which will premiere at 7 p.m. Thursday night (video player below).

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