Maryland football preparing for Washington RB Jonah Coleman, QB Demond Williams Jr.

Ahmed Ghafir
Oct 1
3 min read

Maryland football’s run defense arguably faced its biggest test in week two when NIU ran the ball on 58 of their 98 plays, but the Big Ten home opener marks the biggest challenge for the front seven and defensive coordinator Ted Monachino with RB Jonah Coleman headed to College Park.

One season after eclipsing 1,000 rushing yards and ten touchdowns in his first season with the program, the star Washington running back leads all FBS skill players in scoring per game (15) while ranking third in yards from scrimmage per game (148.3), fourth in all-purpose yards (154.8) and ninth nationally in yards per game (104.25). Coleman opened the season with 177 rushing yards in a 38-21 win vs. Colorado State, one of seven games that he’s ran for 100 yards or more through 17 games at Washington.

Maryland head coach Mike Locksley described Coleman as a “heavy-handed runner” with the senior drawing the full attention of the defense heading into Oct. 4.

“He’s one of those guys that he's a tough tackle in terms of one guy coming. If you don't bring your feet and play and tackle him with leverage, he can make you look bad,” Locksley said on Tuesday.

“He's one of those guys that, as I talked to Ted [Monachino] and our defensive staff, we’ve got to be really good at the gang tackle. When we are playing good defense, you see a lot of guys running to the football. With his running back, it's going to take a lot of hats to the ball because sometimes the first guy may not get him down but we’ve got to do a great job of rallying and getting a lot of bodies to the football on a good runner, a heavy-handed runner like Jonah.”

Maryland ranks sixth in the Big Ten and 26^th nationally in run defense (92.25) while the defense has allowed just two 20+ runs in four games, but DL Dillan Fontus knows the challenges that the “smaller, compact running back” poses to Maryland’s defense this weekend.

“He can complete plays so in order to combat that, we just gotta win the line in scrimmage. So we have to be violent at this point of attack and we have to try to shut down their run game early so we can open up the pass or open up the pass rush like that. So we're definitely going to play our best game up front so that it makes it tougher for him to make those plays and open up the game, to whole other game.”

Maryland will also look to contain Denzel Boston, Washington’s 6-foot-4 WR drawing buzz as a potential first round pick in 2026 while leading the team in catches (19), yards (275) and receiving touchdowns (3), but QB Demond Williams also poses a threat on the ground. The sophomore quarterback is coming off consecutive performances completing at least 81% of his passes, while he opened the season 18-of-24 vs. Colorado State, but Saturday’s loss vs. Ohio State also marked the first time this season that Williams hasn’t run for at least 60 yards.

“We’re just keeping our eyes sealed on our keys so that we know who to attack, where to attack and make sure we get these guys on the ground so that they don’t extend plays more than they need to be,” Fontus said.

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