Huskies Reel In Fisch to Replace DeBoer, Maintain Offensive Prowess
Jedd Fisch left the Seattle Seahawks 13 years ago for another job, after serving as the quarterbacks coach during Pete Carroll's first season with the franchise, departing almost on the same January day that he returned to coach the University of Washington football team.
Fisch backtracks to the city at an interesting time, arriving shortly after Carroll was pushed out of his Seahawks job and with the Huskies roster in utter shambles following the departure of Kalen DeBoer to Alabama, yet Fisch's coaching reputation has never been better after three years of overseeing a successful Arizona rebuild.
Time to roll up his sleeves and pick up the pieces for a national runner-up team that's been gutted almost overnight and reduced to handful of starters and a lot of despair.
On Sunday, the Huskies hired Fisch, 47, as the school's next football leader in Montlake, according to the school and multiple news outlets, two days after DeBoer was lured away by the Southeastern Conference powerhouse following the Huskies' College Football Playoff championship game appearance in Houston.
“It is truly an honor to join the University of Washington and do my part in carrying on the tradition of a storied football program and world-class university," Fisch said in a statement. "The unbelievable success of the Huskies the last two seasons demonstrates what UW is capable of and I cannot wait to compete for Big Ten and national championships with tremendous young men and an outstanding coaching staff that we will assemble."
Fisch broke the news to his Arizona players in a hastily called Sunday meeting, with the Wildcats now going through what UW players have dealt with throughout the weekend as college football continues to swallow itself whole.
ESPN's Pete Thamel is reporting Fisch will receive a seven-year contract worth $7.75 million. No doubt many of the Arizona coaches and some of his Wildcats players will end up at the UW, as well.
The school will publicly introduce him as the UW football coach at 11 a.m. in a Tuesday news conference in the Husky Stadium coaches offices.
The big selling point to Fisch was the job he did over the past three years in totally revamping an Arizona program, going from 1-11 to 5-7 to 10-3, with the most recent season capped by a 38-24 victory over Oklahoma in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio.
This past season, the Wildcats lost only to Mississippi State 31-24 in overtime in Starkville, Mississippi, to USC 43-41 in triple overtime in Los Angeles and to the Huskies 31-24 in Tucson.
"What Fisch has done at Arizona is nothing short of remarkable," On3's Andy Staples wrote about the Arizona program resurgence. "He took over one of the worst roster situations in the FBS and built a winner quickly through high school recruiting and through the transfer portal."
Fisch and his assistant coaches were in line for pay raises in coming off their past season success, but they leave town before they could get that done.
He had three former UW assistant coaches on his staff in quarterbacks coach Jimmie Dougherty, tight-ends coach Jordan Paopao and defensive coordinator Johnny Nansen, plus a former Husky quarterback on his staff in Duane Akina, who his secondary coach. Nansen since has been hired by Texas, choosing to work with Steve Sarkisian again after they were together in Seattle in 2009-13.
What the UW is getting is a New Jersey native who never played high school or college football, but became involved with coaching at his alma mater, the University of Florida, where he became a disciple of Gators coach Steve Spurrier, later spending time with Spurrier as a graduate assistant coach.
Fisch spent 14 years working as an NFL assistant coach for eight different franchises, elevating to offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings and Jacksonville Jaguars.
He also served as an OC in the college ranks for Miami and UCLA. With the Bruins, Fisch became the interim coach at the end of the 2017 season and split a pair of games once Jim Mora Jr., the former UW linebacker and Seahawks coach, was fired.
He also worked at Michigan for coach Jim Harbaugh for the 2015 and 2016 seasons as the Wolverines quarterbacks coach, wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator.
Arizona was Fisch's first head-coaching job and he showed steady progress as the corresponding win-loss records indicate, recruited well and entertained his fan base with an offensive-minded team.
The Wildcats scored 34.6 points per game this past season compared to the Huskies' 36-point average, scoring 41 points or more in four games, with a season high of 59 against rival Arizona State.
Fisch wasn't afraid to make a tough decision, sticking with promising redshirt freshman quarterback Noah Fifita as the starter, with the young player doing well as a injury replacement for junior Jayden de Laura, rather than automatically return to the latter when he got healthy again. De Laura, the former Washington State quarterback, since has re-entered the transfer portal.
Jedd Fisch looks on stoicly while coaching against the UW.
Joseph Camporeale/USA TODAY Sports
With returnees at most key positions, the Wildcats were poised to move to the Big 12 next season, be among the top teams and contend for a spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff.
Instead, he'll need to rebuild a Husky football team that's lost nearly half of its scholarship roster over the past month to graduation, the transfer portal and high school de-commitments.
Five more players ended their connections to Montlake on Sunday in touted freshman quarterback Austin Mack, starting offensive guard Nate Kalepo and defensive back Dyson McCutcheon, who entered the portal, plus Arizona defensive lineman Keona Wilhite, who will seek a scholarship release, and California high school quarterback Jackson Kollock, who de-committed.
Fisch also is at a disadvantage because of the Huskies' national championship run, which created an extra-late coaching coach for the school to deal with and far less time for a replacement coach to scramble for assistant coaches and players.
Add to that former UW coach Jimmy Lake tanking an entire recruiting class in 2021, with all but six of those 17 players leaving the program and none of them becoming starters in Montlake, which is huge detriment.
The Huskies could be set back a number of seasons by all of these perfect-storm developments severely damaging what a week ago was an extremely solid operation headed to the Big Ten.
So Fisch will put his rebuilding hat back on and go to work to see how quickly he can get the Huskies ready for the new conference.
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