Inside The Huskies

Michigan Needs New Coach: Would Fisch Be Interested?

He's a former Wolverines assistant coach who was name-dropped right off as someone to pursue.
Dan Raley|
Jedd Fisch listens on his headset during the Oregon game.
Jedd Fisch listens on his headset during the Oregon game. | Dave Sizer photo

Jedd Fisch was in Las Vegas on Wednesday, attending the Campbell Award event with senior running back Jonah Coleman, while the rest of his University of Washington football team was housed somewhere in Los Angeles, awaiting the LA Bowl on Saturday.

Before he left on this trip, Fisch promised that the upcoming offseason would be "interesting" for the Huskies. However, he didn't whether it would be good or bad.

And he likely had no idea what was coming that could influence it.

While the Huskies were headed south, Michigan fired coach Sherrone Moore for "an inappropriate relationship with a staff member," and the coach next was arrested for an alleged assault involving the other person in question.

Career over, all in one harrowing afternoon in Ann Arbor.

With Michigan without a coach while everyone enters the bowl season and moves on from the recruiting signing period, this is where everything gets real messy in college football, with a trickle down effect always possible.

Michigan has to do damage control fairly quickly by hiring another coach -- and Fisch was the first name that popped up in the conversation to be targeted among all the analysts.

He's a former 2015-16 Wolverines assistant, which made him an automatic option for speculation.

Another name quickly thrown out there was Kalen DeBoer, the former UW leader now at Alabama.

Believe it that Michigan is going to keep swinging until it hits something with hire that resonates with its fan base.

The real downside is if the Wolverines were somehow able to wrestle Fisch away, it likely would gut the Huskies roster for the second time in three years.

Yet the complication here is the fact that Michigan donors are heavily invested in Bryce Underwood, their freshman quarterback starter, which means Demond Williams Jr., the Huskies' sophomore starter, likely wouldn't be compelled to follow his coach if this situation called for that.

Fisch has such a longstanding relationship with Williams, going back a half-dozen years to when he was a freshman at Basha High School in Chandler, Arizona, it's hard to see those two not working together somewhere.

So that's in the UW's favor in their coach staying put.

Yet Michigan, if it wants something, has incredibly deep pockets to pay whatever is needed to twist a coach's arm and make him take it.

While the Huskies are in Los Angeles for three nights before returning after the LA Bowl against Boise State, it will be interesting to see if the UW coach comes back on the charter flight.

Anything goes in today's college football hierarchy, where there are no rules.

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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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