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Kade Eldridge At Center Of UW Fullback Revival

Originally posted on Washington Huskies on SI
By Dan Raley | Last updated Sep 3, 2025 3:40 PM ET

In Montlake, there once was a time when the University of Washington football team was built around the fullback and everyone else came next.

Hugh McElhenny, Junior Coffey, Bo Cornell and Robin Earl were Husky headliners not only with unique names, but they possessed ball-carrying skills as these big, powerful backs who ultimately would each end up in the NFL, though Cornell would be converted to a linebacker and Earl to a tight end.

While those centerpiece days are over for the fullback position just about everywhere across the college game, Jedd Fisch gradually has been rekindling this role at the UW and taking an offensive page from another time.

After all, the fullback is so Big Ten.

"Well, I coached at Michigan with Jim Harbaugh so I've had experience with a fullback, I can tell you that," Fisch said.

This past Saturday, with the UW and Colorado State tied at 14 in the third quarter, the Huskies used a 27-yard sprint by quarterback Demond Williams Jr. and a 6-yard jaunt by running back Jonah Coleman to move the ball to the 1.

The Huskies next put sophomore tight end Kade Eldridge at the fullback position, handed him the football and watched him punch his way into the end zone for a go-ahead score.

It was not a one-time salute to the past either. The 6-foot-4, 250-pound Eldridge, a USC transfer originally from Lynden, Washington, should expect to take future handoffs. He fits the mold for this now unique endeavor.

"Kade gives you the body type of a fullback," Fisch said. "He gives you the ability, I think he's 230 and something pounds, and he can bend. So he gives you the flexibility to be a tight end off the ball, he's strong enough to be a tight end on the ball and also capable of getting into a three-point stance in the fullback position and being involved in pass protection and the run game."

Rushing the football was not a foreign endeavor to Eldridge at all. As a senior at Lynden High School, he ran the ball 72 times for 545 yards and 7 touchdowns.

At the UW, McElhenny became a first-team All-America selection as a fullback. Coffey led the conference in rushing as a sophomore with 581 yards. Cornell scored 9 touchdowns while taking handoffs from Sonny Sixkiller. Earl powered his way to 963 yards as a senior.

Legendary coach Don James employed three different fullbacks in Darius Turner, Matt Jones and Leif Johnson on his 1991 national championship team and they combined for 83 carries, 405 yards and 5 touchdowns, with each one scoring.

The fullback was still in vogue in 2000 when Rick Neuheisel had an 11-1 team that beat Purdue in the Rose Bowl and relied on Patt Coniff, who ran 44 times for 161 yards and 5 scores that season.

The position, however, was mothballed thereafter until Chris Petersen welcomed walk-on tight end Jack Westover to his team and put him in the backfield from time to time, mostly as a blocker.

In 2020, Westover ran the ball five times for 22 yards for Jimmy Lake's team. In 2023, Westover scored on a 1-yard plunge against Stanford, his only carry of the season, for Kalen DeBoer's team.

Now comes Eldridge, who could be an NFL tight end someday. Meantime, he's going to run the ball at times and dare anyone to stop him.

"When you have that guy, and have that type of flexibility, you just added a new dimension in how you run the football," Fisch said.

Eldridge is still looking for his first Husky reception, but it should come soon enough, though it's not clear whether he'll run the ball a few more times before he pulls in a Williams pass over the middle or up the sideline.

"The more we can do with him," offensive coordinator Jimmie Dougherty said of Eldridge, "the better."

This article first appeared on Washington Huskies on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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