Washington HC Jedd Fisch Discusses Apple Cup Matchup Against Underdog Washington State

The Apple Cup has long been one of college football's most storied rivalries, and one the Washington Huskies have controlled easily in recent memory for the better part of the last 15 years.

Entering the game at 2-0 and heavily favored, UW head coach Jedd Fisch has led his program back to becoming a respected team in the college football landscape.

The Huskies' +77 point differential through two games has them rolling, and they look to continue their dominance over Washington State on Saturday. On Monday, Fisch spoke to the media about the upcoming matchup.

Washington HC Jedd Fisch on Apple Cup expectations and regional rivalry experience

"As an assistant, I was a part of the UCLA-USC game, Michigan -Ohio State game, Florida State game. So you know, there's all those games that all have impact. But obviously, the focus we have is on this one and all of our energy, all of our passion, all of our focus is on the Apple Cup. And when you are responsible for a team, then you have all that responsibility to get your team prepared, get them ready to play. [You have to] get them focused and not just be concerned about, you know, just calling the game maybe, and in some of those other situations back, you know six, seven years ago, but getting the team ready to play."

Washington HC Jedd Fisch on extra motivation in the Apple Cup

"Yeah, I mean, every game is a championship opportunity. Every game is an important to go 1-0, right? That's always a mentality that that coaches take. We have a, you know, we have a goal here and one of our goals is to own the state of Washington and one of our other goals is to win championships. And really there's only, you know, there's three trophies you can get nowadays. You can get the Apple Cup trophy, you can get a Big 10 championship trophy, and then you can get your postseason trophy,
whether that be the National Championship or the bowl game."

"So this is one of those, the only one that's guaranteed to us is this game. We have to earn the opportunities to play in the Big 10 championship, earn the opportunity to play in the postseason, but this one we're guaranteed. So, this is a championship game and with that being the case, our full focus is on winning the championship and that's what our conversations have been about the last four days."

Washington HC Jedd Fisch on preparing for Washington State's three quarterbacks

"Yeah, I talked to coach [Ryan] Walters about that last evening. It's certainly unique because of the fact that they played three quarterbacks in the game on Saturday and at least one of the three has a completely unique skill set compared to the other two. So, you know, in the the way the game went, you know, the quarterback that started and the quarterback that finished the game have more similar skills than the quarterback that came in in the second quarter and played some. But we have to have a plan for all three."

"Certainly [have to have] a plan for the two different types of quarterbacks and make sure that we can both stop the quarterback run game that occurred in the second quarter and a little bit of the third, and then the drop back game, play action game and more of the traditional under center running game that occurred early in the game, and then late in the game. That game got away from them with all the turnovers, but you know, that that's hard to to really assess. It's very hard to to get five takeaways in a game and North Texas did that which then of course caused a complete disruption, I'm sure in what they were trying to do offensively."

MORE: Jimmy Rogers Addresses Cougs Quarterback Job and More Ahead of Apple Cup

Washington HC Jedd Fisch on former Washington State and now Huskies' LB Buddah Al-Uqdah's homecoming

"You know, we talked about it. We'll talk again. I think that that's an interesting part of what we're all dealing with now with the portal and with some of these changes. You know, college football is completely different than it once was and a lot of the the old, you know, the old ideas and the way things were are not the same. We'll just talk to him about it, he's a Husky and that's what he is right now."

"He was a Cougar and now he is a Husky and his job is to represent the University of Washington in the best possible way he can. That's on the field playing with great effort, that's being disciplined, that's being smart, it's making a lot of tackles, it's being a great communicator, and that's hopefully at the end of the game celebrating a victory if we do our job and if we do a good job at playing on Saturday. And that's really the only thing that we can ask for Buddha."

Washington HC Jedd Fisch on facing Washington State after their early bye week

"Yeah, I liked [the early bye week]. I thought it was good. I like the idea of, you know, we were able to have, you know, training camp. [That] was pretty significant for us and we worked really hard at camp and then we played a couple games and, to me, it was a good six week break, and then we're going to play another six games, and then take another bye. Once we lived through it and we realized, you know, where our players were physically after training camp and then playing two games, it gave us a great opportunity to reset."

"We didn't really have to do a lot of self scouting because there really wasn't enough film to to deep dive into that. But what we were able to do is continue to use these days to install and put more stuff in and and continue to build off of our offense and our defense and our special teams."

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