Even if UW Huskies’ Jedd Fisch doesn’t go to Michigan, coach carousel won’t stop

Jedd Fisch’s Huskies broke the spell of lost games at the Rose Bowl with a 48-14 drubbing of the Bruins on Nov. 22, 2025, in Pasadena, Calif. (Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)

Skip Ad

By Mike Vorel Seattle Times columnist

“The most important thing you can do is have continuity.”

Jedd Fisch said that at SoFi Stadium on Dec. 13, after his Huskies defeated Boise State 38-10 in the LA Bowl. While he spoke, Wikipedia listed Fisch as the head coach at Michigan, not Washington, a result of college football’s relentless rumor mill. Quarterback Demond Williams Jr. and linebacker Xe’ree Alexander sat to his left and right, respectively, both of whom transferred to play for Fisch.

This is a fitting symbol for the state of the sport — a coach with 11 stops in the past 18 years, and players with three transfers between the two of them.

Continuity is a rare commodity. It’s too expensive for most teams to afford.

If you’re a Coug fan, you know this better than most. Since Mike Leach left for Mississippi State in January 2020, four coaches have filled his seat — Nick Rolovich (2020-21), Jake Dickert (2021-24), Jimmy Rogers (2025) and incoming addition Kirby Moore. The Huskies have been only marginally more stable, with three coaches since Chris Petersen stepped aside in December 2019 — Jimmy Lake (2020-21), Kalen DeBoer (2022-23) and Fisch (2024 to present).

Granted, Rolovich and Lake were fired for reasons you’ve read about too many times. But Dickert, Rogers and DeBoer each boarded the coaching carousel, chasing raises and resources, dismantling what they’d built.

These schools are not unlucky outliers. They’re cogs in an uncaring carousel that levels programs with each incessant spin. So far there have been 33 FBS openings in 2025, according to footballscoop.com, the most in a single cycle since the site began tracking coaching changes in 2008. Outside of 2020, there haven’t been fewer than 21 coaching changes in any offseason since 2014.

Advertising Skip AdSkip AdSkip Ad

As Fisch confirmed after defeating Boise State: “The coaching carousel’s always crazy.”

Now more than ever.

But will Washington be spared another coaching search?

“I don’t know that Jedd Fisch is going to be a factor in the Michigan search moving forward,” On3 and Yahoo Sports college football insider Josh Pate said on his daily YouTube show Tuesday. “He’s got himself a good job at Washington. It’s one of the better jobs in the Big Ten. In fact, Jedd Fisch may have one of the more underrated jobs in the country.

“So it’s not like he needs to be desperate to leave Washington. But his name was a factor. I’m not so sure it’s going to be a factor moving forward.”

A necessary caveat: even if that report is accurate, it doesn’t mean Fisch or the decision-makers at Michigan won’t change their minds. It doesn’t mean a flood of money won’t sweep Fisch off his feet, with staff members and players following behind him. It doesn’t mean another unexpected firing, resignation or retirement won’t implode a program a thousand miles away.

But for now, Fisch’s return creates a fragile, tentative continuity. It allows a nine-win team to potentially build into something better.

That is, if UW’s playmaking pieces decide to stay.

“We’re working very hard at that, to make sure we keep staff together, team together,” Fisch said after the Boise State game. “We’ll meet and Zoom and have a lot of calls regarding trying to get everything ready to go for January 3 or 4, whenever we have that first team meeting. But it’s going to look like probably a lot of work [in the next few weeks], fundraising and talking to donors and trying to put our best team together that we possibly can.

Advertising Skip Ad

“We understand the landscape that we’re in. We understand it’s our responsibility to make sure that our players are compensated, coaches are compensated. We’re going to work very hard to try to get that done. Because the most important thing you can do is have continuity.”

When I say continuity is costly, that doesn’t simply include a coach’s contract. It includes competitive revenue sharing to retain top players and entice recruits. It includes an assistant coaches’ salary pool capable of building and maintaining a championship staff. It includes a donor and fan base willing to fund an effective NIL operation. It includes significant investment in facilities, nutrition and strength and conditioning. It includes the separators and dollar signs that make precious few programs truly poach-proof.

Ohio State. Georgia. Alabama. Texas. Texas A&M. In the NIL era, maybe Oregon.

The Huskies and Cougs don’t belong on the list.

Which is why a year from now, or a day from now, we’ll do this all again. The carousel will spin, message boards will speculate, and your program’s bedrock will begin to shake. Wikipedia entries will be prematurely edited. A roster that was painstakingly assembled may disappear — poof! — into the transfer portal.

It’s not an easy time to be a college football fan. If you don’t win enough, you risk irrelevance and struggle to competitively recruit. If you win too much, you risk the coaching carousel and transfer portal drilling your program for all of its oil. Never has success brought such swift and crushing consequences.

In what other sport does a team’s breakthrough cause its own combustion?

But enough about the sport’s existential crises.

For UW to maintain continuity, it starts with keeping Fisch.  

Mike Vorel: mvorel@seattletimes .com. Mike Vorel is a sports columnist at The Seattle Times.