“Happy Spring,” Jedd Fisch said, beginning his 2025 Spring Football Press Conference before listing all of the things he was personally excited about.
365 days ago he was trying to put together a roster after a trip to the College Football Playoffs National Championship Game. In particular, having just 7 scholarship offensive lineman and none from the best offensive linemen in the nation.
The buzz generated this spring is also different as Pete Carroll and Belichick won’t be meandering the sidelines.
“Lot of excitement in the air when it comes to our team, when it comes to current players, our new staff, recruiting, all of the things that are going on in college football right now,” he paused. “There’s just a buzz out there, which I enjoy, which is really good for the sport.”
Alluding to the state of the program the year before had seen the highest of highs followed immediately by the lowest of lows with final Pac-12 Championship team being dispersed around the country at different schools within days.
“We have a healthy team heading into practice,” he continued before listing several players who won’t be fully participating, namely receiver Denzel Boston, defensive back Ephesians Prysock, tight end Charlie Crowell, linebackers Jacob Manu and Zaydrius Rainey-Sale. “We should have close to 76 scholarship players participating and 15-20 walk-ons.”
He also noted that there are a few players with lingering injuries from last season including linebacker Zach Durfee and defensive lineman Jayvon Parker who will be working out on the sideline with limited participation at times.
“This is a great time of the year when we get to go out there and actually play football instead of just talk about it,” he said.
This spring Fisch, with a full compliment of offensive linemen, will be able to use both Husky Stadium’s field as well as the practice field where “The Zone” operates during home games.
“Just the idea of having 7 scholarship linemen versus sixteen is an enormous difference,” he noted. “The fact that we have guys going into the second year in this offense rather than their first year is a huge difference. The fact that we have players who have returned in their second year on defense, it’s a little different scheme but not completely different will make a huge difference.
Ever the positive person he listed some players who he said that the staff is thrilled to have on board.
“The pieces that we brought in are also very exciting,” he said. “Omari Evans (receiver transfer from Penn State), Tacario Davis (defensive back transfer from Arizona), Kai Horton (QB transfer from Tulane) I think will a really nice add for us in the quarterback room.”
But it didn’t take much to get Fisch distracted from talking about the off-season additions to get onto Washington’s QB of the future.
“And then Demond (Williams),” he hinted at the gem he has a the quarterback position with a slight grin. “Coming off of two starts and now really being able to take the team and see where he can take it.”
In those two starts, both losses to first Oregon in Eugene then Louisville in the bowl game, Williams showed tremendous upside. On one play in UW’s 1-point loss in Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl the true freshman looked to be sacked for a 9-yar loss at the 50 yard line, only to find Jeremiah Hunter for a big gain.
The 2nd year Washington head coach spoke of how the team now benefits from an expanded health and nutrition service and how they’ve been able to see body-sculpting results on the scales but also in overall team speed.
“Jonah (Coleman) will tell you that he gained a lot of speed (over the winter), Fisch said.
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Fisch noted that he hopes that he’s hoping to to have “two great names” as the captains for the Spring Game dubbed “Dawgs After Dark” on the evening of May 2nd.
Fisch’s full comments:
