Expectations

[FremontTroll]

There's luck involved in everything so playing some of these what ifs is pointless. What we do know is what happened with Fisch taking over as bad of a program as the conference ever had, instantly made them better then led them to one of the best seasons the program has ever had in one of the strongest seasons in conference history. He also recruited/developed a handful of draft picks at a program that really struggled to do that in recent history.
Rewatching the Arizona/UW games from the past two years, both times his teams were out of it but they stayed steady and consistent and got back in the game late.
They played the Kwiatkowski prevent D as well as anyone and forced UW to just take small shots mostly and tackled well while locking up Odunze and Polk as well as anyone did. I'd be very interested how the defense was run. I can't get myself to believe Nansen could do shit as a DC, so was Fisch also overlooking that unit?
Fifita played well but he was put in really good positions with the scheme and his pieces around him. de Laura rightfully gets a lot of shit and was a loose cannon but he was even better in Husky Stadium in 2022 than Fifita was in 2023.
Would have been crazy interesting had they not lost to USC in 3OT and it was a rematch with them in Vegas.

Of course, but I was responding to a post that said it wouldn’t “make any sense” to succeed at Arizona and then fail at Washington.

 

[WoolleyDoog]

There's luck involved in everything so playing some of these what ifs is pointless. What we do know is what happened with Fisch taking over as bad of a program as the conference ever had, instantly made them better then led them to one of the best seasons the program has ever had in one of the strongest seasons in conference history. He also recruited/developed a handful of draft picks at a program that really struggled to do that in recent history.
Rewatching the Arizona/UW games from the past two years, both times his teams were out of it but they stayed steady and consistent and got back in the game late.
They played the Kwiatkowski prevent D as well as anyone and forced UW to just take small shots mostly and tackled well while locking up Odunze and Polk as well as anyone did. I'd be very interested how the defense was run. I can't get myself to believe Nansen could do shit as a DC, so was Fisch also overlooking that unit?
Fifita played well but he was put in really good positions with the scheme and his pieces around him. de Laura rightfully gets a lot of shit and was a loose cannon but he was even better in Husky Stadium in 2022 than Fifita was in 2023.
Would have been crazy interesting had they not lost to USC in 3OT and it was a rematch with them in Vegas.

Of course, but I was responding to a post that said it wouldn’t “make any sense” to succeed at Arizona and then fail at Washington.

Yeah this is very true. Success or failure isn't an exact science in college football coaching and you need luck. DeBoer is a good example. I have to think he didn't know Penix could be as great as he was. So if Penix is just as good as he seemed at Indiana and/or gets hurt or he gets Haener instead of him, I have to think he wins 8-9 games the past couple of years and is still coaching at UW as a minor success.

 

[haie]

DeBoer couldn't even make it to a Mountain West championship game.
Because he got beat down by the same boring style of offense and defense that he faced a couple times in the Pac 12 and in the NCG.