UW Football Season Outlook Took Unexpected Turn

The Huskies had their first three-game losing streak under Jedd Fisch.

All eyes were on the Huskies and Xe'ree Alexander to have one of the nation's top teams when the season began, but that's changed. | Dave Sizer photo

Somehow the messaging regarding this University of Washington football team took a hard right turn once the season began, well before anyone on the outside really realized what happened.

All of a sudden, to hear Jedd Fisch tell it, this was a rebuilding year.

His observation came after the Huskies returned two-thirds of their starters from last season's 9-4 team.

His new take on things emerged well after he was able to talk starting quarterback Demond Williams Jr. out of leaving presumably for LSU.

This Montlake market correction took place not long after the UW was ranked No. 17 in the Associated Press poll to begin the season and next saw its high regard disappear without losing.

Jedd Fisch looks a little concerned during the 27-24 loss to Minnesota. | Dave Sizer photo

To look at it now, this Husky team (4-3 overall, 1-3 Big Ten) apparently wasn't underperforming as much as it was resetting to match all of the teenagers now holding down important responsibilities throughout the lineup.

At least that's the position the head coach took after the losing ways set in.

"We know inside these walls that what we're building is we're building it our way -- which is young players, through experience, learning how to become champions," Fisch said three days after beating Purdue 38-26 on the road. "I think we took a nice step on Saturday."

For sure, Fisch approaches the task at hand far differently than his football peers and UW predecessors.

Rather than wear his emotions on his sleeve following a loss and promise wholesale changes while looking for the nearest bar stool, this Husky coach will somewhat cheerfully congratulate the opposition for a job well done following a loss and merely shrug off the despair of dealing with a negative outcome.

It's the Fisch style, one that seems to fit his typically upbeat personality and maybe be a byproduct of his extensive NFL background of looking at things pragmatically rather than emotionally.

Yet it's different.

After losing to underdog and coach-less Arizona State 45-38 in 2022, then Husky coach Kalen DeBoer looked stone-faced and lowered his voice to almost inaudible evels as he addressed the moment, promising to fix things immediately, beginning the following day.

For Fisch, he's had to deal with a quarterback who maybe let the pressure of trying to get back in the good graces of the fan base and even his teammates greatly affect his play, which isn't easily rectified.

For the Purdue game, the coach had to go without five of his eight scholarship running backs because of injury or illness, which is incredibly bad luck.

If he and his staff have made a blunder, it was not installing the accomplished John Mills as the team's starting left tackle at the beginning of the season. Instead, those coaches left freshman Kodi Greene out there to get painfully initiated by much older, meaner and more physical Big Ten defensive linemen.

As for those lofty outside preseason expectations for his team, Fisch said, "We didn't rank us 17th."

At places such as Ohio State and Texas, those teams almost demand high regard in the polls even while playing a lot of freshmen, too, and suffering excessive injuries at times, as well. Yet at no time do they accept anything less than winning every outing with whoever is left.

UW linebacker Jacob Manu either is frustrated or can't hear the radio connection in his helmet, or both, against Minnesota. | Dave Sizer photo

It's probably not the healthiest way to do business, but that's how the blueblood college football teams do it. Rebuilding is not a word that appears in their dictionaries.

Considering the schedule that was in place, with a home-field advantage for five of the first seven games, the Huskies rightfully had a realistic chance to be unbeaten at this point in the season.

Fisch even acknowledged that 6-1 might have been a possibility after close losses to Minnesota and USC.

Instead, they suffered through the first three-game losing streak of the coach's stay in Montlake.

"We had a couple of games didn't go our way and they certainly could have, but they didn't," Fisch said.

So the Huskies will continue to rebuild rather than reload, no matter what the initial message was.