Tag: Jedd Fisch

Big Ten head coach doesn’t think Alabama was a Top 25 college football team in 2024

See which coach ranked Alabama outside the Top 25 in his final Coaches Poll ballot.

At least one Power Four head coach didn’t think Alabama football belonged in the Top 25 after their 9-4 season and disappointing loss to the Michigan Wolverines in the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa.

That would be Washington Huskies coach Jedd Fisch. USA TODAY Sports this week released the final Coaches Poll ballots for all 53 coaches (both Power Four and Group of Five) who made up the poll in 2024.

Fisch, who guided the Huskies to a 6-7 season in his first year in Seattle, took over for Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer after DeBoer left Washington for Tuscaloosa. Fisch was the only Power Four coach who didn’t have Alabama on his final Top 25 ballot.

Three Group of Five coaches excluded Alabama from their final ballots, as well: New Mexico’s Bronco Mendenhall, San Jose State’s Ken Niumatalolo, UNLV’s Barry Odom, and former Nick Saban assistant Lance Taylor (Western Michigan).

As for which coaches ranked Alabama the highest, Air Force coach Troy Calhoun and former Vanderbilt coach Derek Mason (now at Middle Tennessee State) both ranked the Crimson Tide No. 11. Georgia Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart had Alabama at No. 12 in his final ballot, as did Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman.

Among other coaches of note: Ohio State Buckeyes national championship coach Ryan Day had Alabama at No. 19 in his final ballot, while DeBoer himself ranked the Crimson Tide No. 15.

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Taylor Mays leaves USC for on-field role at Washington

Taylor Mays was bound to go somewhere else as he builds his coaching career. He might circle back to USC a few years down the line.

After serving on Lincoln Riley’s staff for three seasons, Taylor Mays is headed to a conference foe. Mays, the legendary USC safety, was officially announced as the new safeties coach at Washington on Thursday. He had spent the 2024 season as USC’s assistant defensive backs coach, and was a defensive analyst for the two years before that.

Now, Mays will get his first shot at an on-field coaching position. It will come in the state where he grew up.

A five-star recruit out of the Seattle area in the Class of 2006, Mays made headlines when he picked the Trojans over the local Huskies. He would go on to be a four-year starter for Pete Carroll’s USC, earning first team All-America honors in 2007, 2008, and 2009.

The San Francisco 49ers selected Mays in the second round of the 2010 NFL draft. He would go on to play six seasons in the league.

There seems to be little question that Mays is a rising star in the coaching world. D’Anton Lynn just got extended as USC defensive coordinator. If, in two years, he bolts for a head coaching job or an NFL coordinator job, Taylor Mays might then be ready to take his place at USC.

Previewing the Washington offense before Saturday’s game in Eugene

Washington has the pieces to become a good offense, but for whatever reason, it hasn’t quite all come together yet.

Washington’s offense was as prolific as any offense in the country last season with Michael Penix at quarterback.

The key word in that sentence is was.

Without Penix and a handful of receivers that left after the 2023 season, the Huskies have had a difficult time replacing that talent, and the offense on the whole has suffered.

Replacing Penix is Will Rogers, a senior transfer out of Mississippi State. While he is nowhere near what Penix did for the Huskies, Rogers is having a very good season in his own right despite being benched a couple of times in favor of true freshman Demond Williams, Jr.

Rogers is completing 71 percent of his passes good for 2,458 yards and 14 touchdowns, but it’s those seven interceptions that has caused first-year coach Jedd Fisch to go to the true freshman from time to time.

In the ground game, the Huskies feature one of the best tailbacks Oregon is going to face, according to Oregon coach Dan Lanning. Besides Ashton Jeanty of Boise State, Washington’s Jonah Coleman is one of the better running backs that appears on the Duck schedule. The transfer from Arizona hasn’t disappointed. He has a career-high 1,007 yards and nine touchdowns.

Washington has a good tailback, a better-than-average quarterback, and the Huskies have a pair of receivers that can do damage as well.

Wide-out Denzel Boston had plenty of reasons to transfer out of Washington with the coaching change and the uncertainty of his role as a first-year starter. But he stuck it out and now leads the Huskies with 764 receiving yards and nine touchdowns.

On the other side of the field is receiver Giles Jackson, a veteran who started his career at Michigan in 2019. After two seasons in Ann Arbor, Jackson found his way to Seattle. This season, he leads the team with 68 catches, good for 663 yards and two touchdowns.

Jedd Fisch harkens back to time at Michigan football in preview of game at Washington

Gonna be weird seeing him on the other sideline! #GoBlue

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.

Jedd Fisch forgets recent history at Colorado when discussing Washington’s rebuild

Jedd Fisch forgot about some notable recent history at Colorado

Fresh off an appearance in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, the Washington Huskies’ roster has undergone a massive transformation this offseason under new head coach Jedd Fisch.

Fisch took the podium during this week’s Big Ten media days and shared that the Huskies own 46 new scholarship players, an entirely new coaching staff and 21 new starters (h/t Brett McMurphy of The Action Network).

“That has never been done before,” Fisch said Thursday regarding Washington’s rebuilt roster. “It’s a true reboot, but so is college football.”

While the Huskies’ overhaul is certainly significant, Fisch forgot about the even larger reboot that head coach Deion Sanders engineered at Colorado last offseason. Sanders added nearly 70 new scholarship players and also brought in an entirely different coaching staff.

To make Fisch’s comments even more strange, his Arizona Wildcats played (and beat) the new-look Buffs in the Pac-12 last November.

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Jedd Fisch touts Washington’s achievements, which he had nothing to do with

Jedd Fisch has to make his own history at Washington, but he is pointing to what Kalen DeBoer just did.

Let’s start with a simple question and answer: If you were Jedd Fisch at Big Ten media days, would you have boldly promoted the elite achievements of Washington football despite having no role in forging them? Yes, of course you would. Why wouldn’t a new coach look at the accomplishments of his predecessor and hold them up before the world? Why not remind everyone how great your school, your program, can be? Of course Fisch should have leaned heavily into Washington’s majestic 2023 college football season. UW Huskies Wire noted this at Big Ten media days:

From taking shots at Washington’s rivals to earning praise from one of his former players, Jedd Fisch and the Huskies were a big hit at their inaugural Big Ten media day.

“Washington football has beaten Oregon the last three times we played,” Fisch said at the podium, unafraid to take a jab at the Huskies’ bitter rivals. “Washington has beaten Texas the last two times we played. Washington has beaten USC the last two times we played.”

Fisch wasn’t wrong to do this, but it remains that while Washington was a hugely successful program last year, everything is beginning again with a very different assemblage of coaches and players and a lot of uncertainty.

USC visits Washington in early November. It will be fascinating to see where the two teams will be by then.

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Former UCLA TE Caleb Wilson joins Jedd Fisch’s staff at Washington

Former UCLA TE Caleb Wilson joins Jedd Fisch’s staff at Washington.

The college football coaching carousel continues to spin a bit. On Tuesday, former UCLA tight end Caleb Wilson joined Washington’s staff as a quality control coach, per Bruce Feldman of The Athletic.

Wilson was previously at Purdue but spent time playing for Fisch at UCLA when both of them were there.

Wilson was the final pick in the 2019 NFL Draft by the Arizona Cardinals but had a short career, spending time with the Washington Redskins and the Washington Football Team, Philadelphia Eagles, and Denver Broncos as well.

The Bruins had been rumored to potentially bringing Wilson to the UCLA stuff but now he is headed to Washington in the new-look Big Ten Conference.

After Jedd Fisch left Arizona for Washington in a domino effect following Kalen DeBoer’s departure to Alabama, he has put together a new-look staff with the Huskies, and Wilson is the latest piece of the puzzle.

Former Saints draft pick, Alabama football star takes high-profile college coaching job

Former Saints draft pick and Alabama football star Vinnie Sunseri has taken a high-profile college coaching job at Washington:

Here’s some good news for a former New Orleans Saints draft pick: Vinnie Sunseri has taken a high-profile college coaching job as the Washington Huskies safeties coach, where he’ll be tasked with developing the next generation of defensive backs at a West Coast powerhouse with national championship ambitions.

Things have come full circle. Sunseri was a standout at Alabama during his own college playing career, and Alabama’s decision to hire Washington’s former head coach Kalen DeBoer led to a lot of turnover for the Huskies coaching staff.

Sunseri, 32, was picked by the Saints in the fifth round of the 2014 NFL draft. But he struggled to get on the field after dealing with a series of injuries. He finished his NFL playing career with the New England Patriots and San Francisco 49ers.

After hanging up his cleats, Sunseri began a coaching career at Alabama as a graduate assistant; he returned to the Patriots in 2020 to get more experience, where he first worked with the defense before moving to the offensive side of the ball for three years coaching running backs. Now he’s going back to his roots with much more responsibility under new Washington head coach Jedd Fisch.

The job comes with high expectations. Washington is fresh off a national title bid, and the school has sent many defensive backs to the NFL draft in recent years; Trent McDuffie and Kyler Gordon were both top-50 picks in 2022, while Elijah Molden was selected at No. 100 overall (followed by Keith Taylor in the fifth round) in 2021. Byron Murphy and Taylor Rapp were each second-round picks in 2019 with Jordan Miller also drafted in the fifth round. Sunseri will be charged with recruiting and developing players to follow in their footsteps. Good luck to him.

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Jedd Fisch shuts down interest in UCLA opening

Jedd Fisch has shut down the rumors involving the UCLA HC interview.

There were plenty of rumors involving current Washington head coach Jedd Fisch and the UCLA head coaching job. Fisch’s photo on Saturday night created quite a stir, and other reports of him interviewing for the UCLA position created an even bigger stir.

But, those can be put to bed for good, as Bruce Feldman of The Athletic reported late Sunday evening:

Saw the report that UCLA had interviewed Jedd Fisch this weekend. I reached out to Fisch who said that report could not be more false. “I had zero conversation with UCLA nor would I.”

Fisch leaving Washington for UCLA would be quite the move given he hasn’t even been with the Huskies for six weeks, not to mention the reaction from Arizona fans after he left the Wildcats to go up to the Pacific Northwest.

So, Jedd Fisch will not be the head coach at UCLA.

The big question is, who will be?

Jedd Fisch causes a stir with photo as UCLA searches for new head coach

Was Jedd Fisch in LA? Did he interview for the job? Lots of questions circulating.

The UCLA Bruins head coaching search is on. One name that probably would’ve gotten a long and hard look is current Washington HC Jedd Fisch. He recently left Arizona to go to Washington and replace Kalen DeBoer.

However, Fisch caused quite a stir on Saturday with a photo that some said was in downtown LA. Other reports mentioned that Fisch did, in fact, interview for the UCLA opening.

Fisch is an intriguing name and was UCLA’s interim HC in 2017, so returning to Westwood likely would’ve been a preference if he had waited just a few weeks.

Some speculated this photo was in LA while others insist it is in Mexico. Regardless, this photo created a big discussion on social media.

But, the oddly-timed photo and other reports sure caused a stir on Saturday.