Inside The Huskies

Polls Agree Huskies Belong in Middle of Big Ten

Ninth is the highest anyone thinks the UW football team will finish in its new conference.

Dan Raley

Washington and Oregon line up in last year's game in Seattle.
Washington and Oregon line up in last year's game in Seattle. / Skylar Lin Visuals

Not quite sure what to make of this greatly reconfigured University of Washington football team -- one coming off a national runner-up finish with a new coach and largely all new starters -- the preseason pollsters have picked the Huskies to finish in the middle of the Big Ten, almost to a forecaster.

On Monday, USA Today, Cleveland.com and KOTC, in order, selected the UW ninth, 10th and 10th, respectively, among the conference's 18 entries.

With at least 20 of 22 Husky starters replaced from the CFP title game, these experts don't want to seem too overly optimistic about Jedd Fisch's team, where, on the other hand, they've tried to show a certain amount respect for a program that enjoyed a milestone moment playing for a championship and developed a winning attitude matched by few when Kalen DeBoer was in charge.

A year ago, the Huskies were ranked second to USC in the Pac-12 preseason poll, drawing just four first-place votes to the Trojans' 25, and everyone saw how that turned out.

In the Cleveland.com poll, the site picked defending national champion Michigan fourth and slotted the Huskies 10th between Rutgers and Maryland, offering the following reasoning for its conference rankings:

"Elsewhere, the national title participants from January just aren’t receiving much love, as runner-up Washington places one spot below Rutgers in the media poll at 10th. Like Michigan, UW was dealt a new coach and quarterback and had a fantastic weekend at the NFL Draft, leaving the 2024 squad to rebuild quite a bit."

USA TODAY gave the Huskies their highest ranking -- ninth -- merely by flipflopping them with Rutgers and elevating Fisch's team to the upper half of the Big Ten. Those teams meet on Sept. 27, on a Friday night, in Piscataway, New Jersey.

All along, Fisch has understood a certain amount of program rebuilding must take place with so much offseason turnover -- with 10 UW players drafted and 13 joining NFL teams -- though he has gone to great lengths to find transfer portal talent to fill in some of the gaps.

"We know there's going to be some growing pains along the way," he recently told the Big Ten Network. "But we look forward for the opportunity to compete for championships through our process."

The Huskies open the season in 40 days, on Aug. 31 at home against Weber State of the Big Sky Conference.

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

Published
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.

Home/Football