Jedd Fisch striving for Big Ten success as Huskies enter year two
Washington Coach Jedd Fisch has a discussion with an official after a play against Iowa Saturday October 12, 2024 at Kinnick Stadium. (Lynn Harrington/stayaliveinpower5)
LAS VEGAS — After a season of disappointment in his first year in the Big Ten, Washington’s head coach is making it a priority to change the narrative as he approaches his 2025 campaign.
It’s easy for the naysayers to judge Jedd Fisch’s first season in Seattle, considering the Huskies won eight less games than the year prior. However, Fisch did a solid job taking over a team that lost their head coach, plus 10 players to the 2024 NFL Draft. He basically started over from scratch, and still led Washington to bowl eligibility.
Laying down the foundation, establishing a culture and implementing a new system is challenging, but Fisch is feeling more comfortable in year two. After getting a taste of the speed, physicality and coaching in the Big Ten, Fisch understands what it’s going to take now to be successful in the expanded conference.
“We spent a lot of time trying to build our culture over the past 16, 18 months, and I think we’re really close to getting the team that we’re looking forward to compete with year in and year out for championships here in the Big Ten,” Fisch said. “We talk a lot culturally about respect, accountability, integrity, selflessness, and enthusiasm, so we believe that we’re a very discipline team.”
Fisch even made big changes to his staff after he promoted Quarterbacks Coach Jimmie Dougherty to Offensive Coordinator, and hired Ryan Walters as Defensive Coordinator. Not to mention Chris Petrilli will be Washington’s Special Teams Coordinator. The Huskies are going to have a new identity, but familiar faces are still around like 1,000-yard rusher Jonah Coleman, and quarterback Demond Williams Jr., who started the final two games of the season. With a difficult road ahead, Fisch wants everyone to gel together in fall camp.
“We’re going to need all that talent, and we’re going to need all that staff leadership this season because we know we are playing in the best conference in the country, with the toughest schedule in the country,” he said. “We have an incredible home-field advantage though.”
The Huskies have won a jaw-dropping, 20-straight games at home, which dates back to the 2022 season. Washington has seven games at Husky Stadium this fall, including Big Ten battles against Ohio State, Illinois and Oregon. Fisch plans on utilizing the 12th man, considering the venue is one of the toughest places to play on the west coast. If the Huskies can upset the Buckeyes, Fighting Illini or Ducks, it’ll definitely be a signature win for Fisch, considering they’ll all be entering the season as top-20 teams.
“Joining the Big Ten in 2024, the best conference in college football, we understand we have a weekly grind of games,” the 49-year old coach said. ” For the last two seasons, our conference showed its strength and dominance with back-to-back National Champions.”
Fisch will need to have his team ready down the stretch, after the Huskies lost five of their final seven games, and that’s going to require quality depth. The players know last season wasn’t good enough, and they’re putting their best foot forward approaching the grueling month of August.
There’s enough talent on the roster to increase last year’s win total, and the schedule sets up nicely with the big games at home. Still, it’s going to come down to Fisch making the necessary adjustments, and playing better on the road, in which he’s confident the Huskies have closed the gap.
“We are going to make sure that everything we do, we do it at the highest level, we do it every day, and we compete for championships and make University of Washington proud.”
