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Inside The Huskies

Arizona Fans Weigh In on Fisch Troubles at UW

The people of Tucson haven't forgotten their former coach and how they feel about him.
Dan Raley|
Alex McLaughlin gets a congratulatory hand slap from coach Jedd Fisch after his Utah State interception.
Alex McLaughlin gets a congratulatory hand slap from coach Jedd Fisch after his Utah State interception. | Dave Sizer photo

Word that Jedd Fisch has hit a rough patch as the University of Washington football coach has reached Tucson, Arizona, his previous stop, and people in that town are talking about it, if not reveling in his misfortune.

It has everything to do with him leaving Arizona for Washington following a 10-3 season in 2023 and in particular the Wildcats experiencing a 4-8 fall-off the following year without him -- when a potential Big 12 championship run was envisioned.

Without any prompting, a half-dozen Wildcats fans, currently enjoying a 5-1 season under coach Brent Brennan, randomly reached out to Huskies on SI to vent their negative Fisch frustrations.

Even a former Wildcats mascot, of all people, named Kirk Sibley was among those who weighed in with some biting words for the coach.

"You hired the wrong person," Sibley wrote on social media. "Coach Jedd Fisch is reviled in Tucson for his big talk on building Arizona football by providing continuity and loyalty, and then filming signing the UW contract in his kitchen in Tucson. Classless."

Sibley shared a near three-year-old social media video he has kept of former UW athletic director Troy Dannen entering Fisch's Tucson home to have the coach put his signature on a contract to coach the Huskies.

He also provided an image of the coach's face that remains attached to urinals in multiple bars surrounding the Arizona campus.

"That’s what his former fans think of him," Sibley said. "Dude has been at a new program every 2-3 years for his entire career. No loyalty but to himself."

These fans haven't forgotten how he took a dozen Wildcats players with him to Seattle and another six who had committed to Arizona and redirected to the UW.

Fisch's Seattle stumble was such big news that Tucson radio station Fox Sports 1450 and a show hosted by Steve Rivera and others called on Wednesday and wanted to discuss the coach's latest travails on the air. Fisch remains big news in the desert.

Meantime, the fans' less than flattering comments about the coach kept rolling in, almost as if he had just left town this past week.

"He is once and always a con man," Wildcats fan Kelly Riker reminded.

Then there was an Arizona football follower named Lou Nixon, who described himself as a former Navy man and a proud father, and with no love lost for Fisch.

"Ask any Arizona person and realize you hired a scumbag!" Nixon said of the one-time Wildcats coach. "Judas Fisch won’t be there much longer if you pay him out."

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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