Inside The Huskies

Jedd Fisch Embraces First UW-Oregon Game With Dr. Feel-Good Approach

The first-year Huskies coach is about to get his first taste of a bitter rivalry and it might surprise him.

Dan Raley

Jedd Fisch usually has an even-keep demeanor on game day.
Jedd Fisch usually has an even-keep demeanor on game day. / Skylar Lin Visuals

One gets the impression that Jedd Fisch doesn't hate anyone or anything. His voice reflection never changes, his expression remains fairly static at all times. After all, he's had 14 football jobs, which means he really hasn't been anywhere long enough to develop intense feelings of dislike for a perceived fall enemy.

Always so even keel, the University of Washington coach simply wished Demaricus Davis well when the 4-star freshman quarterback walked out on his team during spring football, the same for linebacker Bryun Parham, who abruptly left his program at midseason, and shrugged when Penn State coach James Franklin appeared to try to run up the score late in their game won 35-6 by the Nittany Lions.

So while Oregon linebacker Bryce Boettcher, a Eugene native no less, was professing his undying hatred for the Huskies at midweek, Fisch was asked if he understood the deep-rooted negative pangs that are built into this long-standing rivalry game and his answer was nothing short of maintaining a seat at the table for the Paris Peace Talks (yeah, Google it).

It was almost as if Fisch had been commissioned to do a well-funded study and find a cure for why people act so negatively to others wearing the colors green or purple, and so desperately want to serve either barbecued duck or dog meat for dinner this time of year.

Had he been a 1970s protester, he'd be the guy holding up the sign that says "Make love, not war." He's not exactly the fire and brimstone sort of locker room orator with his players that Ducks coach Dan Lanning appears to be, rather he's much more professorial as a leader.

"It's by region, right," Fisch said, offering his definition of the college football rivalry. "There's excessive hatred in Auburn [and] Alabama, in that game. There's excessive hatred in Michigan and Ohio State in the Midwest. There's certainly excessive hatred in the Pacific Northwest between Washington and Oregon. That's the beauty of college football. That's the beauty of these games. That's what you're looking for."

That's what you're looking for?

Leave it to Fisch to find redeeming social value in someone who wouldn't think twice about flattening his tires because he had a Husky bumper sticker on his car or egging his house because he had a UW flag waving in the breeze overhead.

"You hope that it just becomes a great football game," Fisch said. "You hope the emotions don't take over that you wind up becoming undisciplined or it becomes the penalty fest that we lived through week 3 of the season. We haven't had that since the last rivalry game we played [against Washington State in the Apple Cup]."

Ah, but the Cougars simply are the UW's nagging little brother. The Ducks are the guys who stole the Huskies' high school girl friend and remind them of it at every reunion.

How else do you explain Oregon taking a 58-0 win over the UW at Autzen Stadium in the 1973 game and the Huskies responding with a 66-0 beatdown of the Ducks almost exactly 12 months later in Seattle? No rivalry series nationwide has experienced turnaround payback such as that.

"I'd have to be on social media to see that but I try to avoid that during the season," Fisch said of the full rivalry impact. "You catch glimpses of it. It's not hard to know."

He might have missed the posted exchange between Cam Cleeland and Anthony P., with the latter, a Ducks fan, taking exception to Cleeland praising the accuracy of Michael Penix Jr.'s cross-field touchdown pass in 2022 and even questioning his football knowledge, prompting the now Husky broadcaster to remind the other guy that he was once an NFL tight end who caught passes from Tom Brady.

Ouch.

Fisch obviously hasn't seen the little yellow duck toys previously dropped in every urinal on a game day at Husky Stadium or the dog biscuits showered on UW players when they walk onto the field in Eugene.

The Husky coach thinks the rivalry and all of its trappings are great. He just doesn't want his players thinking about anything except scoring touchdowns and limiting their turnovers.

"We need to play a clean game," Fisch said. "I want us to have all the great energy and enthusiasm and let the fans have the hatred. We just need to go out there and have poise, because if we have poise and play good fundamental football, I think we can have a great football game with that crowd."

If not, he very well might come home with a newfound aversion for all things Eugene, green-tinted and Duck-related,, and looking to run up the score on Oregon next year in Montlake.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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