The Washington Huskies have their next coach. Jedd Fisch will be the 30th head football coach on Montlake with a resume that needs to be looked into more than just face value.
While the previous head coach brought an impressive win-loss record and multiple championships Fisch has had just one winning season. All one has to do is look at what he inherited when he took over in Tucson. Like DeBoer, Fisch took over a program with a losing record and a poor reputation among the locals, both coaches and members of the community. Kalen DeBoer walked into a situation that was chalked full of NFL talent that had yet to be unlocked and to his credit he was able to maximize that.
Fisch had to go another route.
Jedd Fisch created relationships with the local community and local coaches around the area that gave him a foothold to recruit the state. He also extended his recruiting network to California and Washington where he has a good reputation and was able to grab high end players like 4-star athlete Rahshawn Clark.
Fisch brought in some of the best classes Arizona has seen with better high school recruiting as well as using the transfer portal. With that he was able to quickly turn the one-win Wildcats into a top three team in the Pac-12.
While the previous coaching staff under DeBoer had some major victories on the recruiting trail with highly rated players like Caleb Presley and Austin Mack, there were many more misses that this staff was unable to secure. At the moment DeBoer and co. left for Tuscaloosa all of the top players in the state were headed somewhere other than Washington. This wouldn’t be an issue if Washington was competing and winning on top end talent nationally, but the fact is they weren’t which could be an issue as the dominant classes of 2019 and 2020 brought in by Peteresen exited.
Jedd Fisch and his staff are excellent recruiters who now have the resources of Washington at their disposal. If they were successful bringing high quality players to Tucson, they should continue that success on Montlake.
