UW freshman running back Adam Mohammed making strong early impression

When he first began recruiting Adam Mohammed, new Washington running backs coach Scottie Graham tried to play it coy.

Graham, coaching on Jedd Fisch’s staff at Arizona at the time, wasn’t the first to offer a scholarship to Mohammed, a middling three-star recruit out of Apollo High School in Glendale, Ariz.

Graham didn’t want to attract more of a spotlight on Mohammed, didn’t want more schools to catch on to the potential he foresaw in the versatile running back.

“I was trying to hide out as much as I could, as long as I could,” Graham said.

Secret’s out now.

Mohammed, an early enrollee at UW, was one of the players Fisch singled out over the weekend for his strong performance this spring, a promising development for a thin position group.

And here’s the catch, as Graham was quick to note after practice Wednesday evening: Mohammed is still just 17 years old (he turns 18 on Friday).

“He certainly doesn’t run like a freshman,” Fisch said. “He certainly doesn’t look like a freshman.”

Mohammed graduated high school early and enrolled at Arizona in December, but his time in Tucson was brief. When Fisch — and Graham — left for UW, Mohammed followed.

And he’s quickly rising up the Huskies’ depth chart this spring.

“He works so hard and he’s so passionate about what he does,” Graham said.

In high school, Mohammed rushed for 5,180 yards and 94 touchdowns in 35 games. Listed at 6 feet and 190 pounds as a senior last fall, Mohammed is up to 205 pounds this spring, Graham said.

“When he gets to 220, it’s going to be ‘lunch money,’” Graham said.

Lunch money?

“You know what that means? Maybe back in high school [you’d say], ‘Give me your lunch money,’” Graham said, then raised his voice to play the part of the other student: “Nooo!”

“Yes, give me your lunch money.”

The Huskies, perhaps, have found a new bully in the backfield.

Graham said Mohammed fits the mold of the running back he’s looking for in Fisch’s pro-style offense.

“I take a certain player — you gotta catch, you gotta block, you gotta do a lot of cool stuff,” Graham said. “You can’t just drop step. There’s different steps to our offense. You’ve got to play receiver sometimes, and Adam can catch the ball like a receiver. His length is incredible. … So it doesn’t surprise me what he’s doing right now. I mean, he’s a good learner.”

Coleman settling in too

Graham credited veteran running backs Cameron Davis and Jonah Coleman for helping to get Mohammed up to speed in the new offense.

Coleman, listed at 5-9 and 225 pounds, has the most experience with Fisch’s scheme, and he was the first player in January to publicly commit to transferring from Arizona to follow the new coaching staff to UW.

“Seeing what we built and coming off the year that we had [at Arizona], it was tough to leave. But, you know, sometimes you’ve got to make a business decision,” Coleman said.

As a sophomore in 2023, Coleman led Arizona with 892 yards on 128 carries, ranking second in the Pac-12 with an average of 6.8 yards per carry.

Coleman is wearing uniform No. 1 with the Huskies.

Graham’s influence was one of Coleman’s biggest factors in his decision to transfer to UW. Graham was an NFL running back for six seasons, and then spent 15 years working with the NFL Players’ Association before joining Fisch’s staff in 2021.

“He was in a position where I want to be, the NFL,” Coleman said. “Just the things that he talked about, like outside of football, was just unbelievable. He’s one of the smartest people I know. And I realized that when I was 16 years old, and I’m glad that I did commit to him.”

Davis ‘loyal’ to UW through it all

After missing all of last season because of injury, Davis is happy to be back on the practice field, even if it’s in a limited capacity.

“I have a chip on my shoulder. It’s hard to sit out for a whole year,” the senior running back said. “But I’ve used that energy to funnel it back into my rehab and attack every day.”

He said he expects to be full go once fall camp starts this summer.

“I’m not all the way 100% yet,” the senior running back said. “But I’m moving really good.”

Davis is entering his sixth season on campus, and he’s glad to finish his college career where it started.

“You don’t see it too often nowadays with the whole transfer portal and NIL, but I’m just loyal to Washington,” he said. “Washington has given me a home, given me a chance, so I just want to stick it out and just get some more wins in my last year here.”