Fisch On: Husky Coach Ready to Make His Debut

The New Jersey native will send his UW players out to face Weber State.

Jedd Fisch offers a reassuring presence to his UW football team. / Skylar Lin Visuals

The first thing you notice about Jedd Fisch is that razor-sharp voice, the one that sort of crackles like a campsite fire when he speaks, with enunciation io clear and profound you can't help but hear everything he has to say.

The other immediate observation is he's a true student of the game, having never played it only studied it, hence he brings a cerebral approach.

On Saturday night, the newest University of Washington football coach will fully reveal himself when he sends his patchwork Huskies up against what should be an overmatched Weber State team to launch a landmark season that has them playing in the Big Ten, coming off a CFP national championship game appearance and dealing with a rapidly changing college football landscape that has come down to who has the most money to pay players.

Whew.

In a coaching nutshell, Fisch is someone whose career suddenly went on the fast track at Arizona -- where have we heard that before, Kalen DeBoer? -- who has assembled a Hollywood Squares staff and possibly has a much better collection of football talent than most college analysts think.

Even with offensive coordinator Brennan Carroll standing nearby on the sideline, Fisch notably will call all of the plays once the game kicks off at 8 p.m. at Husky Stadium, which is his own way of exhibiting hands-on control over the game-day experience. It's what he does.

Counting interim coach Bob Gregory from the disastrous 2021 season, Fisch is the 32nd leader to go through a UW football coaching debut. Ten lost the first time out. Jim Owens was one of two Husky coaches to tie, which won't happen again with all games now requiring a winner. The legendary Don James labored through a 23-point defeat with pro football hall of famer Warren Moon at quarterback in the Arizona desert.

Luckily for Fisch, only Jimmy Lake loses to a Big Sky team. Since that league was formed in 1963, the Huskies have played 20 games against its dues-paying members -- and been upset only by Montana, 13-7 in 2021.

The following is how each of the Husky coaches have fared in their first outing, with all but five of them getting the chance to open at home.

Husky Coaching Debuts	Opponent/Result
W.B. Goodwin, 1892	Seattle Athletic Club, 28-0 loss
C. Cobb, 1894	at Port Townsend HS, 14-14 tie
Ralph Nichols, 1895	Seattle Athletic Club, 12-0 win
Carl Clemans, 1897	Seattle YMCA, 10-0 win
A.S. Jeffs, 1899	Port Townsend HS, 16-0 win
J.S. Dodge, 1900	Seattle HS, 5-0 win
Jack Wright, 1901	Whitman, 10-0 loss
James Knight, 1902	All-Seattle team, 12-0 win
Oliver Cutts, 1905	USS Chicago, 11-0 win
Victor Place, 1906	USS Philadelphia, 5-0 win
Gil Dobie, 1908	Lincoln HS, 22-0 win
Claude J. Hunt, 1917	Whitman, 14-8 win
Tony Savage, 1918	Oregon State, 6-0 win
Leonard Allison, 1920	Whitman, 33-14 win
Enoch Bagshaw, 1921	Ninth Army Corps, 24-7 win
James Phelan, 1930	Whitman, 48-0 win
Ralph Welch, 1942	Pacific, 27-0 win
Howie Odell, 1948	Minnesota, 20-0 loss
John Cherberg, 1953	Colorado, 21-20 loss
Darrell Royal, 1956	Idaho, 53-21 win
Jim Owens, 1957	Colorado, 6-6 tie
Don James, 1975	at Arizona State, 35-12 loss
Jim Lambright, 1993	Stanford, 31-14 win
Rick Neuheisel, 1999	at BYU, 35-28 loss
Keith Gilbertson, 2003	at Ohio State, 28-9 loss
Tyrone Willingham, 2005	Air Force, 20-17 loss
Steve Sarkisian, 2009	LSU, 31-27 loss
Chris Petersen, 2014	at Hawaii, 17-16 win
Jimmy Lake, 2020	Oregon State, 27-20 win
*Bob Gregory, 2021	Arizona State, 35-30 loss
Kalen DeBoer, 2022	Kent State, 45-20 win

There are always two sides to every story and this is no different when envisioning how Jedd Fisch's first UW season, if not his Montlake career, might pan out.

For a program strength, Fisch-led Huskies seemingly will be very well-coached, with Steve Belichick running the defense, Carroll the offense to a degree and former UW assistant coaches Jimmie Dougherty and Jordan Paopao, who go all the way back to the Steve Sarkisian era, back for another stint.

If there's a problem with this hastily assembled team, the UW players up front have not proven themselves to be able to throw down at the line of scrimmage, on either side of the ball. It's an all-new offense line, with three transfers inserted, while the Huskies will go with Big Sky transfer Sebastian Valdez from Montana State and the healthiest of the banged-up Parker twins, Jayvon, manning the defensive front.

Jedd Fisch hangs out with his quarterbacks during spring ball. / Skylar Lin Visuals

Yet there is a surplus of skill players on offense and experienced players in most other spots on defense to make things interesting this season, with the 12-team playoffs likely out of the question but an attractive bowl game something to shoot for.

The well-traveled Fisch, who played and lost to the Huskies in each of the three seasons he's been a head coach, seems to like living and working in Seattle. He said the summer was the best one he had experienced anywhere. He's made a concentrated effort to upgrade the facilities. He's recruited well for future Big Ten seasons to come. He's settling in.

To be realistic, Fisch might suffer a bunch of defeats with a fairly challenging schedule in his first year of again what seems to be a rebuild. He even could have people suddenly question his coaching ability, leaving him not much of a Husky honeymoon and plenty of distractions, which is what social media does these days.

However, in this day and age of a transient college football landscape, Husky fans better hope that Fisch is only moderately successful. That way, there won't be any massive program disruptions such as what happened when DeBoer left for Alabama after winning 25 0f 28 games in two high-powered UW seasons and half of the roster followed him out the door.

Now if Fisch, 48, were to experience similar uproarious success -- say win most of his games against Michigan, USC, Penn State and Oregon, or all of them -- the New Jersey native probably wouldn't be long for Montlake.

He likely wouldn't end up at Florida, where he graduated and became a Steve Spurrier graduate assistant coach, though that job could open again very soon. Instead, with a bunch of high-level wins, and he beat Oklahoma in his most recent coaching outing for Arizona, he would become everyone's coaching flavor of the month on a much wider scale.

The NFL, where he's coached 14 seasons, no doubt would want a piece of him as a head coach, with all of that collected wisdom and those glorious Belichick and Carroll connections.

For now, Fisch is the Husky coach just getting started, full of confidence and hardly bothered by much, such as a 4-star quarterback leaving him for UCLA, only wishing him luck and moving on. He's a pro's pro who likely will do well at the UW for however long that is.

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