Fisch Coached for Gophers, Now Wants to Beat Them

For the man who seemingly has coached everywhere, yes, Jedd Fisch once spent a season on the University of Minnesota football staff.

In 2009, he took his first offensive coordinator post anywhere and joined the Gophers, spending a lone season working for coach Tim Brewster and sharing in a 6-7 season that ended with a 14-13 loss to Iowa State in the Insight Bowl in Tempe, Arizona.

So Fisch's flirtation with the Big Ten began 17 years ago, based on a recommendation and ending because he had a chance to coach for the first time in Seattle -- for Pete Carroll and the Seahawks -- and couldn't pass that up.

As Fisch and his University of Washington football team (3-0) get set to host Minnesota (2-1) on Saturday night at Husky Stadium, he was asked about the circumstances that brought him to the Gophers for literally a passing moment.

Brewster and Fisch had worked for the Denver Broncos at different times, the former as the tight-ends coach in 2005 and 2006 and Fisch as the wide-receivers coach in 2008.

A phone call to Broncos coach Mike Shanahan brought them together.

"[Brewster] reached out to Shanahan and asked, 'Is there somebody on your staff who can run the Shanahan offense and the principles behind the West Coast offense, and how they ran it?' " Fisch recalled, referring to a short-passing game approach.

Jedd Fisch congratulates Husky safety Alex McLaughlin for a big play. | Dave Sizer photo

Next stop, Minneapolis.

It was rewarding and challenging for Fisch.

While his Minnesota offense put up 42 points on Michigan State and 35 on both Purdue and Northwestern, Fisch's guys couldn't crack the stellar defenses of Penn State, Iowa and Ohio State, getting shut out 20-0 and 12-0 by the first two teams and losing 38-7 to the Buckeyes.

Brewster, however, could never get it going at Minnesota and was fired midway through his fourth season in 2010, long after Fisch had moved on, when the head coach was holding up a 1-6 record.

For Fisch, it was worthwhile experience because he became a play-caller for the first time, something that became his chief football motivation, even as a head coach.

As fate would have it, Seattle ended up taking Fisch away from Minnesota once Pete Carroll was put in charge of its NFL franchise.

"At the end of the year, Pete Carroll got hired as the Seahawks coach and hired me to come be the quarterbacks coach," Fisch recalled. "I thought it would be great to go learn from coach Carroll up here in Seattle."

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