Jedd Fisch Can't Stress Enough What a Big Deal the Big Ten Is

The Husky coach points to nationwide recruiting as unique to the conference, even more so than the SEC.

Jedd Fisch, not Kalen DeBoer, will lead the University of Washington football team into the Big Ten Conference whereas a month ago this new Husky coach was preparing for a Big 12 membership for Arizona and himself.

It's one of the reasons he made the career move from Tucson to Montlake. To be on the biggest stage of college football, in the largest conference, in an 18-team elite grouping.

"You're competing with the big dogs that are going to make sure that every aspect of their programs is A-plus," Fisch said. "You're in the big leagues — and it's like an NFL Sunday every Saturday."

In so many words, he even intimated the Big Ten is a much bigger deal than the Southeastern Conference, where DeBoer, his Husky predecessor, now holds court at Alabama.

It all comes down to the pursuit of football talent, which is conducted coast to coast by the Michigans, Ohio States and Penn States.

"The SEC recruits mostly in the South," he said. "The Big Ten recruiting is national. We've got to be just as national against them."

After all, this is a place where a head coach at one conference school (UCLA) just resigned to become the offensive coordinator at another (Ohio State).

Fisch's recruiting pitch to prospective players is they will play every week on the most-watched college football stage, in TV prime time, and rotate games between East Coast, West Coast and Midwest time zones.

"So recruiting against those guys, who are established and have been at it a long time," the coach said, "is a huge challenge."

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