Jedd Fisch calls out 'ridiculousness' of his name being linked to open head coaching jobs

Washington’s Jedd Fisch has been viewed as a candidate to go elsewhere on this year’s coaching carousel. However, the Huskies’ head coach has now gone at those rumors head-on.

Fisch addressed his rumored candidacy for other jobs, and what he’d tell his current fanbase about them, during his press conference on Monday. He emphatically denied those in his answer to Christian Caple of ‘On Montlake’, with those being started by who he says are seemingly clueless people who don’t know or don’t understand how bought in he and the people in their building are to being in Seattle.

“Yeah, I would say those lists are made by people that have no idea what’s going on, honestly,” said Fisch.

“They don’t know what’s happening in our program,” Fisch said. “They have no idea how excited I am about the youth in our program. They have no idea how excited I am about the fact that we’re playing six or seven true freshmen. No idea how excited I am about the fact that Demond Williams, I believe, has a chance, over the next year or two years after this, to be one of the all-time best quarterbacks that have come through this area. I don’t think they would know how I enjoy coaching here, that we’ve spent a ton of money into building this program the way we want to build it, that I had a great hand in all the facilities. I was a big part of making the decisions on how we wanted to recreate this space to give our players an unbelievable opportunity to have a recovery room that they never had, working on making sure that they have the best nutrition they can possibly have, give them great new meeting rooms and new office spaces for our coaches.”

As far as that all goes, Fisch says those rumors are started by whoever who puts his name on lists and hot boards like that just because they can. And, because of that, he hopes his team, his staff, and those committed to their program in years to come can see through all that when it comes to him remaining with the Huskies.

“I think, unfortunately, what happens is they just want to tie coaches to lists, and then we have to sit there and defend it, rather than just be able to tell our fans, like, our players, our coaching staff, myself, my family? We love coaching at the University of Washington,” said Fisch. “And, the ridiculousness of people that want to claim that, because my wife and daughters are living in Arizona, because I have a 16-year-old who’s been in five different schools in the last eight years to finish her high school, has anything to do with my decision? Or the ridiculousness of just putting my name on a list just to do it? Not only does that affect recruiting. It affects our team. It affects our staff.”

“My hope is that, our players, our coaches, our families understand how much we love it at Washington,” said Fisch.

Fisch is in the midst of his second season at Washington, and fifth in total as a collegiate head coach after three seasons at Arizona. He, in that span, currently sits with an overall record of 28-31 (.475), but is 22-13 (.629) the past three seasons with the Wildcats and Huskies. He’s then currently at 12-10 (.545), including 6-3 so far this season, at Washington.

However, that all said, Fisch has been known to change jobs a lot over his coaching career. This is the 14th different title for him since 1999, with stops in college at Florida, Minnesota, Miami, Michigan, UCLA, Arizona, and Washington, most notably with the head jobs open right now for the Gators, his alma mater, and the Bruins, as well as in the NFL with the Houston Texans, Baltimore Ravens, Denver Broncos, Seattle Seahawks, Jacksonville Jaguars, Los Angeles Rams, and New England Patriots. None of those stops lasted longer than four years, with nearly all of them being two years spent there or less for Fisch.

Still, this didn’t sound like someone who’ll yet be leaving Washington. It sounded as though like Fisch, with no one else knowing what he’ll do moving forward, will be with the Huskies for a while longer.