Inside The Huskies

Jedd Fisch Is One Happy Traveler for the Huskies

The UW football leader doesn't complain or anguish over the Big Ten schedule.
Dan Raley|
Jedd Fisch doesn't let much bother him when it comes to game details.
Jedd Fisch doesn't let much bother him when it comes to game details. | Dave Sizer photo

Coaches in the Big Ten increasingly are complaining about the travel, the time zones crossed, the hour at hand to play a football game.

There are so many built-in excuses now for people who need them.

Yet Jedd Fisch, because of his 14-year NFL background, doesn't subscribe to the woe-is-me mentality.

His University of Washington football team will kick off at Michigan on Saturday at 9 a.m. Pacific Time, noon local time -- for the third time the Huskies have had to do this in two seasons now -- and the Husky coach just shrugs.

"The time is the time," Fisch said. "I don't look at it as a 9 a.m. start. I look at it as a 12 o'clock start. Wherever we are is what time the kickoff is."

A year ago, the Huskies had consecutive games in the Midwest that began at 9 a.m. Seattle time -- at Iowa and Indiana -- and they lost both of them badly, but Fisch never once complained about a lack of sleep, a bad breakfast or a lumpy bed.

Jedd Fisch doesn't make excuses when dealing with Husky football travel.
Jedd Fisch doesn't make excuses when dealing with Husky football travel. | Dave Sizer photo

He just said his teams had to get better in order to deal with the demands of the Big Ten Conference scheduling and Saturday's game will be another opportunity to do this.

Now that doesn't mean Fisch hasn't consulted others, such as Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald, examined some of the details and made a few alterations the second or third time around on the road with the Huskies.

"We're flying on a bigger plane," the UW leader said.

For the recent Maryland game and coming Michigan outing, the Huskies made plans to travel a day earlier on Thursday to get to their destination and settle in.

There's one other upgrade.

"We also have a better team than we brought a year ago," Fisch said this week.

The NFL mentality is such that teams now play in Europe, Mexico or other foreign ports and complaining about the travel arrangements or distance simply doesn't cut it.

"We're going to do everything we can not to make the schedule, the travel, the body clock, any of those, as reasons why we play well or not well," Fisch said. " We want to do everything we can to eliminate distractions and make it just about the team."

As far as consulting Macdonald for the latest travel tips, Fisch's proximity to his fellow Seattle coach was one reason for their shared intel. There was another factor, as well.

"I want to be like the Seahawks and be on a 9-game road win streak," Fisch said.

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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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