I don't think it's impossible but I think people are underestimating how bad of a season 4-8 be. If they don't lose a non-conference game (and they shouldnt) that means they win one conference game. The 2021 season took some epic fuck ups by Lake to only win four games, including losing to an FCS team and they had road game against a Final Four team. The Pac-12 was soft at the top but was really deep and middle strong with the worst team ironically being Fisch's 1-11 squad who probably should have beaten Jimmy but got bailed out by a Tuli int.
Washington is a program that is very easy to see bad seasons incoming. It's rather simple.
Gilbertson, Willingham, Lake. The three horsemen of the apocalypse and the reason why WASHINGTON is no longer viewed as a juggernaut program (Ty is the middle and biggest horse and bears 81% of the responsibility).
At UW, first time P5 Head Coaches promoted from within will fail. Lambo was the best of the bunch, the others were disasters. Gilby was a lazy hire that should never have been made. He cratered fast and quickly and was canned.
Lake was an optimistic hire, but the writing was on the wall with the Donovan hire. That was a head scratcher for even the doogliest of doogs, and it played out about as well as expected. A weird covid season playing every game at home deluded us and probably prolonged the experiment, or maybe Pete coaching needed 2 years to wash out. There was some hope for a good defense and running the damn ball, but the program turned out to be soft and the scheme was the worst in all of college football.
Willingham sucked at Notre Dame so it didn't take a genius to see he'd suck at UW. That he was allowed to suck for as long and as hard as he did is a travesty.
In review, UW cannot promote from within and cannot hire coaches who have sucked elsewhere. Sark was a risky hire and brought the program back to life to some degree, but UW should never hire an assistant coach again.
Hiring proven coaches at the P5 and G5 level tends to go really fucking well.
For this reason, Fisch is going to do well here. For how long is the bigger question.