Hardcore Husky Podcast: When your head coach is the team's weakest link

Man that started dark and got darker
Need to figure out a way to keep coaches and players from leaving teams willy nilly and that will solve 90% of the problems with the sport right now
Can't bring myself to be fully out on Fisch yet
 
There's some problem with the sport obviously, but that's across the board and just everything is going to lose some fans for various reasons.
I still think UW has enough in state guys, enough guys that care and love playing here from AZ and CA, or even Colorado. Players from Washington, at least some of them want to transfer back here. Not their fault they weren't evaluated well by previous staffs.
This is just a shit sandwich that's harder to swallow when, in an offensive focused sport now, you have a coach that is so bad he goes 3 and out and then it's 0-10 almost immediately. Does that against every real team you played and it is 100% coaching, and then most of our fanbase is so scared of 2024 that they're screaming that they need to keep him anyways.
Unwittingly or not, you're making a big point here. Fisch's biggest ally in gaining leverage wasn't the Florida opening, it was DeBoer abandoning UW mere days after playing for the natty.
 
UW got better this year. Fact. It's not good enough. Fact. I also, reluctantly, disagree with the "in this day and age all you need is x years" argument, with respect to Race. There are nuances here that can never be appropriately qualified, such as injuries, scheduling, barometric pressure, etc. 8-4 next year is not reason to fire him. The big issue is that he's tied himself to an OC who doesn't call plays, so if Judd would give up those doodies he'd be handing them to a first time nobody. So he has to fire himself and his OC. I think I've talked myself back around into: you're fucked.
 
UW got better this year. Fact. It's not good enough. Fact. I also, reluctantly, disagree with the "in this day and age all you need is x years" argument, with respect to Race. There are nuances here that can never be appropriately qualified, such as injuries, scheduling, barometric pressure, etc. 8-4 next year is not reason to fire him. The big issue is that he's tied himself to an OC who doesn't call plays, so if Judd would give up those doodies he'd be handing them to a first time nobody. So he has to fire himself and his OC. I think I've talked myself back around into: you're fucked.
UW's defense got better. The offense was wildly inconsistent despite bringing back starters. Not a good indicator when that's what Fish is primarily responsible for.
 
I don't know how anyone can be excited moving forward without big changes to how the offense operates.
I thought Hugh Millen covered this nicely (and succinctly, which is odd for him) on with Softy yesterday (caught it by chance).
Fisch is enamored with the pass game and WANTS to win "that way".

We have a head coach more enamored with doing what he wants than with what works and/or best suits our personnel and the situations.

That's incredibly alarming to me and I don't know how you fix that. He's not some 36 year old upstart. I struggle to think that philosophy will change.

Even if Jedd doesn't change and gets personnel to do the pass heavy winning he wants, I still want a coach that can adjust to what the situation and opponent dictate will work the best.
Last Saturday, a good coach would have seen the run game working with #24 and leaned in heavy to all flavors of that, and passes off of that, and only gone with more downfield passing that complemented that plan (play action, etc) and mixed it up once they were loading up to stop the run more consistently.
We're in the Big Ten now. We honestly should be more run-centric than we are. Great defense and running games travel very well.
I'm just not convinced we have a great head coach.
 
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I think Fisch took over a really tough situation. I think he helped keep the program from truly bottoming out in 2024 as bad as they could, I think they were better in 2025, I think they should be better in 2026 and beyond I just don't know if it's enough to matter. If he was in a fake conference like the Big 12, or a down Pac-12, he probably would, but Washington's expectations in the Big 10, I don't see it.
I know Sark is a well we go to quite often, but I could really a course like we had with him of getting slightly over time, getting talent into the program, but ultimately winning nothing of consequence.
The player coach shit needs to be managed and assessed better by Fisch with who he is bringing him. I don't even want to know how much Tacario Davis was brought in to sit out the two games where he was really needed.
 
Our only hope at this point is that he had to show a bunch of loyalty to these guys just to get them to come with him, especially Jonah, and pretty much all of those guys are done now.
Demond is still here and Jedd still wants to drop back, so he is going to need to actually assess his QB room.
 
UW got better this year. Fact. It's not good enough. Fact. I also, reluctantly, disagree with the "in this day and age all you need is x years" argument, with respect to Race. There are nuances here that can never be appropriately qualified, such as injuries, scheduling, barometric pressure, etc. 8-4 next year is not reason to fire him. The big issue is that he's tied himself to an OC who doesn't call plays, so if Judd would give up those doodies he'd be handing them to a first time nobody. So he has to fire himself and his OC. I think I've talked myself back around into: you're fucked.
UW's defense got better. The offense was wildly inconsistent despite bringing back starters. Not a good indicator when that's what Fish is primarily responsible for.
And I would add the OL got significantly better which only bolsters your point.
 
Passing game gets you jobs in the NFL unless your last name is Shannahan.
 
The easiest way to score a lot of points is to have an explosive passing game. I have no problem with wanting an explosive passing game.

You also have to do what the game calls for you to do. Muhammad was rolling and had tons of confidence and should have gotten quite a few more carries before the game got to the fourth quarter.
 
When Jett gets into the opponent 40-25 yard range he starts throwing up passes into the end zone. After he fails at that he has to punt or his QB just threw a pick.
I don't remember him doing anything else to score against solid+ defenses. He even does it to shitty teams, but we can easily make that ground up and throw away drives.
 
When Jett gets into the opponent 40-25 yard range he starts throwing up passes into the end zone. After he fails at that he has to punt or his QB just threw a pick.
I don't remember him doing anything else to score against solid+ defenses. He even does it to shitty teams, but we can easily make that ground up and throw away drives.
The bombs that were picked at the goal line vs Wisconsin and Oregon were both huge plays that fucked us.
 
When Jett gets into the opponent 40-25 yard range he starts throwing up passes into the end zone. After he fails at that he has to punt or his QB just threw a pick.
I don't remember him doing anything else to score against solid+ defenses. He even does it to shitty teams, but we can easily make that ground up and throw away drives.
The bombs that were picked at the goal line vs Wisconsin and Oregon were both huge plays that fucked us.
Yeah and he's coaching it. He's calling plays like he arbitrarily needs to dial up those sluggos and faggos into the end zone to keep the defense "honest" about a bunch of other shit that he never runs.
I mean, he did that against UCLA on the first drive with an undersized receiver that wasn't even going to see the field this year if it weren't for a ton of injuries 😂
 
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When Jett gets into the opponent 40-25 yard range he starts throwing up passes into the end zone. After he fails at that he has to punt or his QB just threw a pick.
I don't remember him doing anything else to score against solid+ defenses. He even does it to shitty teams, but we can easily make that ground up and throw away drives.
The bombs that were picked at the goal line vs Wisconsin and Oregon were both huge plays that fucked us.
Yeah and he's coaching it. He's calling plays like he arbitrarily needs to dial up those sluggos and faggos into the end zone to keep the defense "honest" about a bunch of other shit that he never runs.
I mean, he did that against UCLA on the first drive with an undersized receiver that wasn't even going to see the field this year if it weren't for a ton of injuries 😂
I get it, but the one against Wisconsin had Lawson all alone on a drag over the middle. The results are on Fisch, but the QB can’t throw that ball.
 
When Jett gets into the opponent 40-25 yard range he starts throwing up passes into the end zone. After he fails at that he has to punt or his QB just threw a pick.
I don't remember him doing anything else to score against solid+ defenses. He even does it to shitty teams, but we can easily make that ground up and throw away drives.
The bombs that were picked at the goal line vs Wisconsin and Oregon were both huge plays that fucked us.
Yeah and he's coaching it. He's calling plays like he arbitrarily needs to dial up those sluggos and faggos into the end zone to keep the defense "honest" about a bunch of other shit that he never runs.
I mean, he did that against UCLA on the first drive with an undersized receiver that wasn't even going to see the field this year if it weren't for a ton of injuries 😂
I get it, but the one against Wisconsin had Lawson all alone on a drag over the middle. The results are on Fisch, but the QB can’t throw that ball.
Well, we're getting fucked both ways because his offense is stubborn and he hitched his wagon to a kid that isn't what he's been selling this whole time. You can tell too by the way he pumps up stats against bad teams.
I think he ruined Demond, but Demond's job should be in question for next year unless you're Washington.
 
wonder how much freedom Demond has to mix things up? Remember the 2024 Apple Cup when Brennan Carroll and Will Rogers did everything in their body language to convey they didn't agree with Jedd's short field option brilliance?
Given what I have seen from Demond's passing ability thus far he needs to be hammered to look for shorter gains more often. Both terrible end zone picks he threw this year he had great options just standing there.
I also find it funny that I haven't even thought about I assume an OC can get better perspective up in the booth so both Jedd and Demond are struggling with their height limitations.
 
Are we sure Jimmie Dougherty is even worth a shit? Maybe he was hired to be a yes man
 
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