Saturday will mark the first time that Washington will host a team in its new conference, the Big Ten. But there’s another first — it will be the first time two Jim Harbaugh acolytes will face off as head coaches within the conference.
Sherrone Moore was groomed to be the Wolverines head coach by Harbaugh, but Harbaugh’s first coordinator when he came to Ann Arbor was Jedd Fisch, who oversaw the pass game for the maize and blue. Fisch left and went first to UCLA as its offensive coordinator before joining the Rams as an analyst. Then he got the head coaching job at Arizona before taking the Huskies job this offseason.
Fisch says that these Wolverines exist within Moore’s vision and that they aren’t too much different from Harbaugh’s teams.
“They run the ball extremely well and they play great defense,” Fisch said. “I was watching the USC game before I came up here with 12 minutes left in the second quarter, USC had minus three yards. Michigan had 121 yards but the score was 7-0. That was an interesting one.
“You look at the Minnesota game, it was 24-3 before the game kind of went the other way for a while. In the fourth quarter, Minnesota got hot, which was what you saw.
“I think they certainly run the football exceptionally well. Sherrone’s been there six years, that’s his run game. He was the offensive line coach, he got there the year after I left. He was the offensive line coach — I think he was the tight end coach, the O-line coach then the OC. During that time you could see how he built it from the outside in. The tight ends became an elite group, then the offensive line became an elite group and then the whole offense last year was very hard to stop. They’re continuing to run the ball at an exceptionally high level.”
On the other side of the ball, Fisch sees the same system as what Michigan was running after him. When he was in Ann Arbor, he was paired with former defensive coordinator Don Brown (in 2016) and though the Wolverines have had three different coordinators since then, with Wink Martindale running the system, it’s still high level and requires a lot of preparation.
“Defensively, they really run the Baltimore Ravens defense now for five years,” Fisch said. “I guess since 2021 when Don Brown came to Arizona, they hired Mike Macdonald and then from Mike Macdonald to Jesse Minter, Jesse Minter to Don Martindale. All three of them were together in Baltimore, so they run the Ravens’ defense. You’ve got to deal with one of the best defenses, I guess, in the world, right? Pro football so, therefore, in the world.”
Though Michigan has been somewhat anemic offensively, Fisch more projects what could happen compared to what has actually happened. He notes that the Wolverines will run the ball ad nauseam and though this hasn’t really happened yet, he says that Alex Orji will then hit teams over the top with the pass game.
“You’ve got to deal with, offensively, a team that is really going to ground and pound you and then as soon as you fall asleep, they’re gonna hit you on a big one over the top,” Fisch said. “We’ve got our work cut out for us, it’s going to be a great atmosphere. I’d be shocked if it wasn’t absolutely slammed in the stadium with 70 — hopefully — 75,000.”
Michigan and Washington kick off at 4:30 p.m. PDT at Husky Stadium in Seattle. The game will be nationally broadcast on NBC.