Jedd Fisch -- Deny Today, Depart Tomorrow?
Comments
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I'm living rent free in your head and I don't even want to do so
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You say I'm completely missing the point and yet I agree with 95% of your post. My little joke comment notwithstanding, the head coach doesn't matter as much as it did say five years ago, but it still matters an awful lot.
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If you have to try that hard to build a case for Fisch then you have your answer in front of you
You just don't want to see it
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"It's hard" mentality is making a comeback at UW.
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TCU MBA has a funny definition of mediocre.
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Maybe Tequilla and Race could agree on the idea that Fisch is a very good rebuilder of programs but it remains to be seen if he can take the next step and make the CFP? It would have been chinteresting to see what he could have done at Arizona in 2024 and 2025 for more data points but he obviously jumped to UW.
I do put some value in the idea that, in a rebuild, you lose big to the better teams on your schedule (as Fisch did in 2024), and then you lose smaller (as Fisch generally did) before you win smaller against some of them. Will the improvement team-wise be enough to win small against 2 of them (Indiana, Penn State at home and USC and Oregon on the road)? That's why we'll tune in.
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I'm not saying that UW can't be a top tier team in the Big10
The 2025 UW team IMO was a fringe at best playoff team. I said before the season on numerous platforms that my expectation for UW was to be 9-2 heading into the Oregon game with a chance to go 10-2 and competing for a CFP berth. The Wisconsin debacle not withstanding that effectively was reached for 2025. The underlying metrics all point upwards and a good offseason could very easily push this roster into a better position in 2026 (although very possible that this is a more difficult schedule vs 2025).
From my viewpoint, I see the following as the core Big10 teams that I'd say are consistent annual threats for the CFP:
Ohio St, Michigan, Penn St, Oregon, USC, Washington
As long as Cigs is at Indiana they are probably in that group
There are other programs in the conference that can be dangerous but are unlikely to get to the 10-2 threshold necessary to be a CFP team
What I want to see is that in the years that UW isn't at the top of the conference that they are very clearly still in that Top 5-6 range of the conference … and they were in 2025.
Get into the Top 3 and now you're a legit National Championship contender.
UW isn't at that level right now … they are progressing in that direction.
Climbing the mountain isn't necessarily easy and some parts of that climb are easier than others … it's a topic that we talked about a lot with CP on the TSIO podcast dating back to that 2015 and 2016 offseason.
There are a lot of parallels to that time period …
It's not all doom and gloom around here.
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The HC 100% matters when you have the roster to compete at those levels.
The HC matters when it comes to building your roster in so far as he's able to recruit and develop the talent to get to those levels.
This staff has shown a very good ability to identify talent … how many players has this staff identified early in the process (and won their recruitments) only to see their rankings increase and having to fend off some of the more high powered programs in the nation at the end of the process? That's a great sign IMO
I think where I'm critical of your original post (and most of the posts bashing Fisch around here) is that the negativity isn't balanced with what is going right with the program.
I don't know if Fisch is the guy that will get UW back into a position where they are in the CFP Top 4 … will he leave before he gets to that point or simply not be able to get to that point … who knows
What I do know is that the trajectory of the program in his 2 years has been far more favorable than not and has a lot of parallels to CP's 1st 2 years here.
I don't think many want to fully embrace the challenges that Fisch took on here because in so doing it requires acknowledging that DeBoer's recruiting and the roster left behind wasn't very good.
I don't think many want to fully embrace that the roster that DeBoer inherited was far superior to the one that Fisch inherited.
The narratives have been too quick to compare DeBoer vs Fisch as a pure apples vs apples comparison … they aren't.
This isn't just an issue around Hardcore Husky but in the majority of the UW fanbase … everybody is so jilted by the DeBoer departure that they are too busy not buying into the job Fisch is doing and as a result can't wait for him to leave because they're convinced he will eventually (and he will) …
The thing that everybody is missing is that every coach is going to leave at some point …
As I say often, CP was the PERFECT fit at UW and he lasted 6 years here … if CP only lasted 6 years then we probably should be realistic in setting our expectation for the duration of a HC and realize that staying 10+ years is far more of an exception than the rule
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The jury is 100% still out on Fisch and his ability to reach a CFP level and win the games necessary to get into that position … anybody arguing otherwise is blindly projecting.
Fisch has shown as a HC that he's able to build programs having done so 2x now and the trajectories looking quite similar in their own unique ways.
I'm probably more bullish on Fisch because of that than the average person because being able to build a program and have strong growth annually is not necessarily easy.
We'll get a good idea on Fisch's ceiling after the 2026 season.
The idea of wanting to run Fisch out after 2 years at UW is absolute insanity to me.
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This might be your worst post ever …
Completely lacking context
Completely lacking analytical horsepower
You're better than that
