Inside The Huskies

Michigan Still Needs Coach and Fisch's Name Lingers

The Husky leader remains linked to the Wolverines' opening in the eyes of others.
Dan Raley|
Jedd Fisch and Rob Gronkowski hold up the LA Bowl trophy, which resembles a belt.
Jedd Fisch and Rob Gronkowski hold up the LA Bowl trophy, which resembles a belt. | Dave Sizer photo

Michigan has been without a football coach for two weeks now and it might be another week or so before the Big Ten powerhouse program solves this pressing employment issue.

It's almost as if the school can't give the job away.

Certainly, something needs to be done in Ann Arbor before the free-for-all that is the transfer portal opens on January 2 and the Wolverines try to hit it hard to restock the roster defections that either have happened or are sure to come.

Meanwhile, people continue to throw names around trying to figure out how this will shake out.

On Christmas Eve, ESPN's Pete Thamel was asked for an update from what he knows and he dropped three leading candidates: Missouri's Eli Drinkwitz, soon-to-resign Utah leader Kyle Whittingham and Washington's Jedd Fisch.

As much as Fisch has said he'll be coaching the Huskies in 2026, his name just won't go away.

Drinkwitz will coach his 8-4 SEC team in the Gator Bowl against Virginia on Saturday.

Whittingham, prepping his 10-2 Utah team for the Las Vegas Bowl against Nebraska on New Year's Eve, already has announced he's stepping down -- and that he's not necessarily done with coaching.

"Those are considered gettable coaches but they all come with complications," Thamel said.

This coaching mess began on December 10, three days before the Huskies appeared in the LA Bowl, when Wolverines coach Sherrone Moore was fired for "an inappropriate relationship" with a younger staffer and then was arrested for reportedly creating a scene in the aftermath.

Moore, who replaced Jim Harbaugh as coach after Michigan beat the UW 34-13 in the 2024 CFP championship game, basically took himself way too seriously and blew up his career in a very short amount of time.

Since then, there's only been speculation about who and how the Wolverines are going to fix this ordeal.

Every day without a head coach is a day lost.

Fisch's name automatically was linked to this job opening because he was a Wolverines' assistant coach for Harbaugh in 2015 and 2016.

He was asked about it more than once at the LA Bowl, where he coached the Huskies to a 38-10 victory over Boise State.

"I'm fully focused on our team," Fisch said after the game. "Our team worked really hard this whole week. We gave everything we had. We played at a very high level because of that. That's all I would say about that."

If Michigan is waiting on Drinkwitz or Whittingham to finish their bowl games, that would explain the delay in filling this role.

As for Fisch, the Wolverines likely would have hired him by now, especially with his bowl game out of the way, if he was the target.

The other issue that would appear to put a kink in a Fisch-to-Michigan scenario is the quarterback situation.

Jedd Fisch gets the tradition Gatorade bath at the LA Bowl from Jacob Manu and Zach Durfee.
Jedd Fisch gets the tradition Gatorade bath at the LA Bowl from Jacob Manu and Zach Durfee. | Dave Sizer photo

Fisch overwhelmingly has committed himself to rising junior Demond Williams Jr., someone he's had a football relationship with for six years -- since Williams was a freshman at Basha High School in Chandler, Arizona.

Yet Michigan has a fairly pricey quarterback already in place in Bryce Underwood, who is coming off his freshman year after the big donors pooled their resources in a bg way to flip this homegrown player from LSU.

Maybe loyalties only run so deep in college football, but Fisch abandoning Williams or trying to take him to Michigan and compete against Underwood just seems highly unlikely.

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

For that matter, Fisch has set up the UW football program to succeed in a systematic manner in 2026 and all of that work would be wasted if he left, efforts that should count for something with his coaching sensibilities.

Two-thirds of his starters return from a 9-4 team, which includes linebacker Jacob Manu, who Fisch encouraged to redshirt and stick around for another season in Montlake. Would Manu feel compelled to pack up and go to Michigan if his coach did? Williams, too? John Mills?

The other thing about Fisch is he's 15-11 as the UW head coach, and 31-32 counting his time at Arizona.

That just doesn't seem to be a big enough splash for him to be welcomed with open arms by the fan base as the next Michigan man.

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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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