Dannen Took Everyone Behind the Scenes in UW Hiring of Jedd Fisch
In introducing new football coach Jedd Fisch, Troy Dannen reminded everyone on Tuesday he's been on the job as the University of Washington athletic director for just 108 days.
At the same time, he also demonstrated exactly how and why the school hired him.
Facing a crisis situation, Dannen proved to be intuitive, preemptive, well-prepared and above all cool under fire when Alabama ultimately came in and took Kalen DeBoer away from him.
Dannen's intuitiveness actually kicked in six weeks earlier, when the Huskies were preparing to face Washington State in the Apple Cup and he still didn't have DeBoer signed to a contract extension for no good reason.
He could only presume the second-year UW football coach might be looking to use his continuous Husky success as a career stepping stone.
"Believe it or not I had an inkling around Thanksgiving," Danne said. "We put a pretty good contract offer on the table and, when we couldn't get it signed, that gave me some pause."
On Thursday, three days following the national championship game and within 24 hours of Nick Saban announcing his Alabama retirement, Dannen learned the SEC school wanted to speak to his football coach and went into what he called "full-bore, lockdown search mode" and drew up a list of 10 replacement coaching candidates.
A day later on Friday, DeBoer left the UW for the Crimson Tide in what almost appeared to be a pre-arranged deal — or at least several Husky alums and donors were convinced of this, suggesting the coach or his agent had put the wheels in motion on this coaching courtship before Monday's national championship game against Michigan had even played out.
Meantime, Dannen was prioritizing what he wanted in his next Husky football coach — "a recruiter, and not just somebody who knew they had to recruit, but somebody that was maniacal about it."
He settled on Fisch, who in his third year had coached Arizona to a 10-3 season, capped by a 38-24 victory over Oklahoma in the Alamo Bowl in late December, and had lost a close one to the UW 31-24 in Tucson at midseason.
At 3 p.m. on Saturday, Dannen made his first call to Fisch in Tucson and they proceeded to get to know each other.
"I knew we had the right guy," the UW athletic director said. "Then it became, can we get him?"
At 10 p.m. that evening, Dannen called Fisch a second time and asked if he and his administrative team could fly to Arizona and visit with him on Sunday. The answer was affirmative.
They had a deal by mid-day, with Fisch agreeing to a 7-year, $54 million contract with heavy penalties for breaking it, all of which was endorsed by UW president Ana Mari Cauce.
"Once they showed me what is possible in Seattle, and what their vision of the future looks like, there was no answer other than yes,” Fisch said.
Dannen said it took 30 hours from the time he made the first call to the coach to the moment Fisch signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU).
"I'm pumped," the AD said. "I think everyone associated with the Husky football is going to be pumped. I know we went through a lot of emotions. They go up and down. But I will tell you, we're in a great place going forward."
That appears to be the case for the UW in more ways than one.
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