Here's what Jedd Fisch Thought About the UW Spring Game

The Husky football coach came away upbeat about what took place.

Jedd Fisch, shown with new basketball coach Danny Sprinkle, broke out an all-white sweat suit for the spring game. / UW

Jedd Fisch was easy to find at all times during the University of Washington spring football game, resplendent in an all-white sweat suit. Some leaders like to have their coaches all color-coordinated and similarly dressed -- for instance, Don James used to have everyone break out the purple polos and mustard colored pants.

Not Fisch. He's his own fashion beacon while letting his assistants pretty much wear whatever they want. Offensive coordinator Brennan Carroll prefers dark colors while defensive coordinator Steve Belichick is always in shorts.

That said, Husky football seemed like a perfect fit for Fisch on Friday night as he coaxed a crowd of 15,000 or so to come out and make his spring wrap-up festive. He had 250 football alums show up the night before, with Jake Locker, Shaq Thompson, Marcus Peters and Lincoln Kennedy all speaking to his team over 24 hours. Vita Vea ran the Husky siren to get things rolling on Friday night. Last season's stalwarts in Michael Penix Jr., Jack Westover, Nate Kalepo and Asa Turner wandered the sideline, too, unable to get too far away from the Huskies, even with Kalepo and Turner playing for new college teams in Mississippi and Florida.

Fisch's plan was to make the spring football game more of a social gathering and he succeeded in doing that.

"It's important to me, I love it," he said. "I love it being for our fans to have the chance to experience what our kids get to do every day. Why play in an empty stadium when you can play in not an empty one? I think hopefully in next year's spring game, we can even have more people. Maybe their buddies and their friends will decide, 'Hey, that was a a great night, let's come, let's bring a friend.' If everybody brought a friend, maybe we would have a sellout."

While Fisch got to introduce new players and old players in new roles, he pointed out this also was a chance for the fan base for the first time to celebrate what just happened -- a run to the national championship game -- a moment that was somewhat neglected by the immediate coaching change from Kalen DeBoer to Fisch in the days immediately following the finale.

"It was also a credit to last year's team," Fisch said. "I'm sure these fans wanted to come see., they wanted to see what it looked like. Last year's team was 14-1 and now you have a chance to come back here and celebrate last year's team while kicking off this team. One thing we'll never forget is the success of last year's team and the year before, and we'll try to build off of that."

With 15 practice sessions complete, the first-year coach felt comfortable that he knows his personnel right now and what motivates them, while mixing in holdovers with a large amount of newcomers.

"I think we've learned that they like to compete -- they understand that and how to act like pros," he said. "They enjoy doing things right and enjoy doing things the hard way. That's a credit to the guys who came here with us, to the players that want to be here, They like to work really hard and have long practices. They like to tackle and like to be physical and love the game of football. So i've learned if you surround yourself with people like that, you have a great chance."

Asked to single out any individual spring performances, Fisch preferred to thank three guys for turning themselves into centers on the fly when there were none on the roster except for the promising Landen Hatchett, who is diligently rehabbing a knee injury. The coach said he initially worried about the position, especially when a lot of bad snaps surfaced in the first practice. Yet redshirt freshman Zach Henning, redshirt freshman walk-on Parker Cross and freshman Michael Watley, all normally guards, each gave Fisch a needed stopgap at the position.

"The guys who never get any credit are the centers," he said. "That first practice we had a lot of balls on the ground. We were asking -- because we had no one who had ever played center or played center all spring -- if you snapped it in high school or you snapped it in eighth grade, you were playing center and lining up against pretty big defensive linemen."

In the end, the ball finally made its way to his scholarship quarterbacks in Mississippi State transfer Will Rogers and freshman Demond Williams Jr., who were able to do what was asked to close out spring ball and put in positive work.

"For the most part, it seemed like they made good decisions," he said. "There's some tthings here and there we clearly have to clean up. That's what summer is for. I'm just excited to see how far we can get this summer. That's the biggest challenge. We're not taking this summer and using it as a vacation. We're taking the summer and really challenging ourselves to see how good we can be."

And once the Huskies get through the summer, and then the following fall and winter, it'll be time for another bigger and better UW spring football game.

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