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Inside The Huskies

It's Year 3 in Fisch Rebuild, Always A Crucial UW Milestone

Coaches who have come before him have used the third season in Montlake as a springboard.
Dan Raley|
Jedd Fisch looks on from the sideline at the LA Bowl.
Jedd Fisch looks on from the sideline at the LA Bowl. | Dave Sizer photo

Three years into a college football rebuild, the freshmen have become juniors, the coach is acquainted with all of his leading donors on a first-name basis, and everyone else seems to know their way around the place.

With few exceptions, this is how the most successful eras of University of Washington football over the long term have been put together.

The third year is the linchpin, Jim Owens taking a 3-7 Husky team and going 10-1 in 1959, and winning the first Rose Bowl in school history.

Thirty-six months into his magical Montlake stay, Don James came off a 5-6 season and coached the UW to an 8-4 season in 1977 and a Rose Bowl berth, with the Huskies closing with their first win over Michigan in program annals.

In his third year, Chris Petersen revved up the UW after a 7-6 season and coached his guys to a 12-2 record and the school's first College Football Playoff appearance in 2016..

Granted, Rick Neuheisel produced an 11-1 team and a Rose Bowl winner in season two in 2000 and Kalen DeBoer went 11-2 and 14-1 while in Seattle in 2022-23, but they didn't stay long.

Now here comes Jedd Fisch in his third season with the Huskies, looking for a big payoff with his meticulous rebuild.

His UW teams have gone from 6-7 to 9-4 to maybe double-digit victories this fall.

He returns his No, 1 quarterback in Demond Williams Jr., two-thirds of his starters, a potentially robust defense and will open with at least two extra talented freshmen in the lineup.

Most of all, Fisch is in his season three at the UW, a juncture that has paid off for him before. At Arizona, in his only other head-coaching stop, he took the Wildcats from 1-11 to 5-7 to 10-3, a run that was capped by a two-touchdown victory over Oklahoma in the Alamo Bowl.

Season three is like a flight to Hawaii, to paradise. You don't want to miss it.

For most coaches than not, it's a telltale moment in their coaching careers -- they find out whether they have it or they don't. Whether they can recruit. Whether they can win.

Thirty-six months might not seem like a long time. After all, the players now have five seasons to complete their careers. Most students need four years or more to graduate.

Yet it's such a crucial milestone in the way of doing college football business, at least in Seattle, that Fisch should be thinking that only good things are going to happen.

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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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