Raiden Vines-Bright, unofficial stats and what else to know about Washington's spring game
'I don’t know why anyone would want to waste their 15th practice and not be able to coach off of it.'
SEATTLE — Washington’s star tailback pulled his helmet off and jogged into a cartwheel before executing a celebratory backflip on Friday night. Jonah Coleman did this not to commemorate a victory or even a touchdown, but instead something he might never get to do again.
He nailed a PAT in the second half of the Huskies’ annual spring football game.
This was a spring capper the way coach Jedd Fisch wanted it, an evening of sanctioned levity at Husky Stadium that at times offered interesting football, too. The Gold team defeated the Purple team, 20-12, though Purple could have trimmed the deficit on the final play if only edge rusher Isaiah Ward had been as adept at placekicking as Coleman.
UW announced attendance at 20,565 — that’s tickets scanned, not distributed — which is a couple-thousand more than what this event drew a year ago. Michael Penix Jr. flew in to be an honorary coach. Former star linebacker Donald Butler represented the other side, and former stars like John Ross III and Sidney Jones attended, too.
Also, Corgis raced at halftime (congratulations to GG, who possessed not only the requisite knowledge that a race was actually happening, but also the quicks needed to win). Gymnasts did backflips down the field to determine which team got the ball first. The winning team earned a steak and seafood feast; the losers earned rice and beans. Players signed autographs and posed for selfies with fans during the game.
“We want to make it a celebration of spring football,” Fisch said. “We also want to be able to get better while we’re doing it. To me, you go play a two-hour game. I don’t know the total amount of snaps, but there was probably 85 to 90 snaps. There was interceptions. There was touchdowns. There was tackles. There was fumbles. There was a lot of things that you can coach off of.
“I don’t know why anyone would want to waste their 15th practice and not be able to coach off of it.”
A bit more about the interceptions, touchdowns, tackles, fumbles and more: