Breaking News: Washington QB Michael Penix Jr. states reason why coach Jedd fisch can not coach the team…….more
Fisch is one of the few coaches in college football who did not play football at a high school, collegiate, or professional level. He spent time as a graduate assistant under Steve Spurrier at Florida from 1999 to 2000. Fisch then bounced around coaching in the NFL for five teams between 2002 and 2010. Over the next six years, he was the offensive coordinator for the Miami Hurricanes, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and the quarterbacks’ coach for the Michigan Wolverines. Fisch then spent 2017 at UCLA where he became the team’s interim head coach following Jim Mora’s firing. Many pushed for his hiring as the full-time head coach following that season. Instead, he went back to the NFL for three years before Arizona came calling.
In 2021, Arizona had just fired Kevin Sumlin who had an abysmal 31% winning percentage in Tucson from 2018 to 2020. The program was at the bottom of the Pac-12 Conference and needed change. Fisch was hired in 2021, and he finished 1-11 that year. But things were quickly pointed in the right direction under Fisch. In 2022, Arizona finished with a respectable 5-7 record that included wins over North Dakota State and ninth-ranked UCLA. In 2023, Arizona became one of the hottest teams in the Pac-12, winning the final seven games on its schedule. That streak included five ranked wins, and the Wildcats completed the year with a 10-3 record. Fisch and his team capped it off with an Alamo Bowl victory over Oklahoma. In just three seasons, Fisch resurrected the Arizona football program. He improved from 1-11 to 10-3 in that span.
The Washington Huskies college football team represents the University of Washington in the North Division of the Pac-12 Conference (Pac-12). The Huskies compete as part of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. The program has had 31 head coaches since it began play during the 1889 season. Jedd Fisch is the current head coach.
The Huskies have played more than 1,100 games over 122 seasons. In that time, eleven coaches have led the Huskies in postseason bowl games: Enoch Bagshaw, James Phelan, Ralph Welch, Jim Owens, Don James, Jim Lambright, Rick Neuheisel, Steve Sarkisian, Marques Tuiasosopo, Chris Petersen, and Kalen DeBoer. Eight of those coaches also won conference championships: Gil Dobie, Claude J. Hunt, Phelan and Bradshaw captured a combined four as a member of the Pacific Coast Conference and Owens, James, Lambright, and Neuheisel won a combined 11 as a member of the Pac-10. Don James won a national championship with the Huskies in 1991.
James is the leader in seasons coached and games won, with 153 victories during his 18 years with the program. Dobie, who was undefeated during his nine seasons with Washington, has the highest winning percentage of those who have coached more one game at .975. St ub Allison has the lowest winning percentage of those who have coached more than one game, with .167. Of the 30 different head coaches who have led the Huskies, Dobie, Phelan, Darrell Royal, Owens, and James have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Indiana.
New University of Washington athletic director Troy Dannen on Monday and Tuesday was in Rancho Mirage, California, telling his leading donors what they could expect from him and Husky athletics in the days ahead.
Except Dannen wasn’t entirely forthcoming at the two-day event — whatever the plan was, it turned out to be only a number of hours in concept and he wasn’t going to be part of it.
Dannen, as first reported by ESPN’s Pete Thamel and confirmed by the school, is leaving to become the next Nebraska athletic director, accepting a six-year deal, after just five months on the job in Montlake.
As he exits, the Iowa native is believed to be the shortest-serving AD in the history of the school with a track record that wasn’t all that memorable.
He will be remembered for losing highly successful Husky football coach Kalen DeBoer to Alabama after just three months on the job and a mere four days following the Huskies’ 34-13 defeat to Michigan in the College Football Playoff championship game in Houston.
He’ll be recalled for uprooting himself from Montlake less than than two weeks after firing basketball coach Mike Hopkins and departing before he could barely draw up a pool of replacement candidates.
“I’m dumbfounded,” said Dave West, a leading UW donor and former Husky basketball player who attended the California alumni event. “He said this was his last job. He said he had 10 good years in him — he didn’t have 10 months in him. I just can’t believe this guy would bail on us at such a critical time.”
Within an hour of Dannen’s news leaking out, alums privately were sounding the alarm about Husky basketball in particular and the potential for irreparable damage without an immediate coaching hire.
On Monday, the lame-duck athletic director told the alums in that first segment he would have a new coach in place by next week. BYU coach Mark Pope, a former Husky, Kentucky and NBA player, and Utah State’s Danny Sprinkle were circulating among UW program supporters as strong possibilities as they ate dinner and shared intel.
On Tuesday, Dannen and new football coach Jedd Fisch were the guest speakers at the annual Dawg Days in the Desert event, both casually attired in polo shirts and shorts at a sun-splashed and well-attended gathering of athletic supporters on the edge of Palm Springs.
UW president Ana Mari Cauce similarly was in attendance and seemed her usual cheerful self.
It’s not clear if Dannen, who left Tulane after nine years for the UW, had shared his career plans with anyone he worked with while he was in California. Certainly he didn’t tell the attentive donors.
Raised on a farm in Iowa and a University of Northern Iowa alum, Dannen will return to his native Midwest and replace Trev Alberts, formerly a standout Cornhuskers linebacker who surprised everyone at his alma mater by leaving Nebraska recently to become the Texas A&M athletic director.
“How could he take that job knowing what we had to do?” West said of Dannen. “This is just incredible.”
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