Until late in the second quarter Washington was able to hang with Iowa, and then it all unraveled slowly and steadily to the tune of a 40-16 defeat, the largest loss since the Huskies fell by 27 to Washington State in 2021.
UW struggled to find its footing offensively between the second and third quarter before the Hawkeyes pulled away with 17 points in the fourth quarter to secure the 24-point victory.
After starting 3-for-4 on third downs in the first quarter the Huskies (4-3, 2-2 Big Ten) converted just 2-for-11 over the final three quarters, which led to Washington being outscored 16-10 in the same stretch and ultimately down 23-10 going into the fourth quarter.
Starting UW left tackle Maximus McCree suffered a dislocated thumb injury on the third play of the game and did not return to the field, something that proved costly with redshirt freshman Soane Faasolo struggling to hold up in pass protection filling in for the veteran lineman.
"It's always a little bit challenging, I would say," UW coach Jedd Fisch said after the game on the loss of McCree.
"But Soane has taken a lot of reps. He came in – I mean certainly it wasn't just over the left tackle that caused us to have some issues in protection today. We ran the ball pretty good for the most part. We hit on some nice runs, but we just put ourselves behind the chains a couple times that we felt like we had to throw a few, and then the score kind of took us away from the running game at about 31-10, even though we tried to get a few in there with Demond [Williams Jr.]."
Starting quarterback Will Rogers led UW on a promising drive to open the third quarter, hitting senior wide receiver Giles Jackson and sophomore Denzel Boston for 10 and 22 yards respectively, before throwing his second interception of the season to Jermari Harris, who returned the pick 32 yards to the Iowa 46-yard line which resulted in a 25-yard Drew Stevens field goal to put the team down 23-10 at the 7:22 mark in the third quarter.
It was the second turnover of the game for the former Mississippi State signal-caller and his second turnover in consecutive games after throwing his first interception of the season last Saturday against No. 10 Michigan.
"Fisch on Rogers turnovers"
Rogers took a strong hit from junior defensive lineman Aaron Graves and fumbled the football, which was recovered by Iowa and gave the hosts prime field position to retake the lead with 6:08 left in the first half.
The Hawkeyes did just that, settling for a 37-yard Drew Stephens field goal to gain a slim 10-7 advantage late in the second quarter, the first of seven consecutive scoring drives for the hosts that ultimately proved to be the difference in the game.
Rogers finished 22-of-34 for 195 yards and one touchdown - a 5-yard pitch-and-catch to Boston – to level the score at 7-7 with 9:19 to go in the second quarter – before coming out of the game with just over 12 minutes remaining in the contest for Williams.
The true freshman threw his second career touchdown pass, a 2-yard completion to redshirt freshman Rashid Williams with 2:58 left, which saved the game from being the largest defeat since losing to Arizona in 2012 by 35 points and offered a glimpse of what the future holds with respect to the UW offense.
"I think we're seeing who we want to be, but it's going to take some time," Fisch said. "We are – it is a different conference, and the Big Ten is built a certain way and this program here at Iowa is 26 years in. Coach [Kirk] Ferentz has recruited exactly what he wants here. He has built this program, he has built the fan base exactly how he wants it, the facility how he wants it, every aspect of it 26 years straight he's been here. So, we're going to continue to build ours and we're going to get it going and we're excited about it."
Washington heads into its bye week this coming week before the program hits the road in two weeks at No. 18 Indiana (6-0, 3-0).
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