SEATTLE — Washington lost to No. 6 Oregon 26-14 Saturday afternoon at Husky Stadium.
Jedd Fisch recapped the fourth loss of the season for the Huskies (8-3, 5-3), who await their bowl destination.
Below is a portion of Fisch’s postgame press conference.
JEDD FISCH
Opening Statement
First of all, I want to acknowledge our seniors. We had about 23 guys up there walk today, and couldn’t be prouder of them on the way they’ve handled themselves. A lot of them have been with me and our staff for four years from the time that we recruited them in high school, in a different school in 2022, who were a part of changing an entire culture. Really, changed it twice. I want to appreciate the guys that stayed here when we arrived and bought into what we were trying to get done and had become team leaders and captains. I appreciate the guys that just transferred in here this year, and were part of a good season. I’m proud of those guys. I appreciate those guys as well. I also appreciate all the young players that we played today. They’ll continue to shine, there’s no doubt about it. They’re getting better and better and better. As we continue to build the program the way we want it, our program will continue to elevate. Oregon’s a good football team. Coach (Dan) Lanning does a great job. It was not a surprise that there was going to be a good football game today, very physical. Two teams that were competing at a high level, running the football, trying to run the football. There were a few plays in the game that were difference makers for us that didn’t go our way. We had some momentum on first and 10, from the 20 yard line in the first half and ball didn’t go our way and threw an interception there, and then had momentum 19-14 on third and nine and thought we had a great opportunity for a stop, get the ball back, and hopefully take the lead, and they hit a 64 yard touchdown there. There’s a couple plays here and there, unfortunately, that were game changing. I thought our players competed as well as anybody. We’ve got to coach better and we have to continue to improve as players, but we’ve got a lot of the good things ahead of us.
What are the next steps to turn some of these close losses into wins?
That’s kind of the way it works. You lose big, then you lose small, then you win small, then you win big, and that’s the progression of how these turnarounds occur or how these films occur. I think we had some interesting, big wins, throughout the year, but these type games against the top 10 teams, they’re challenging and they’re going to be like this. I saw a little bit of Ohio State Michigan game and we looked similar in a lot of ways. You’ve got to get over the hump. You want to beat Oregon, you want to beat Ohio State, you want to beat those teams. You’ve got to get over the hump, and you’ve got to be able to score one more touchdown, probably hold them to one less touchdown, and then you’re over the hump. I don’t see these games being much bigger than that in terms of scoring margin. But we’re getting close.
You started three true fresh on defense. Was Zaydrius Rainey-Sale just ready for a promotion?
Yeah, he’s earned it. He’s going to be really, really good, really special. We started RDA (Rylan Dillard-Allen) as well and Dylan (Robinson). Unfortunately Tacario (Davis) wasn’t able to get back and we weren’t able to get him to feel comfortable to open up and run full speed. We’re continuing to play young guys. Dezmen Roebuck had a great game of offense as a true freshman as well. Adam Mohammed is a true sophomore, he ran the ball exceptionally well today. And Demond (Williams Jr.) is a true sophomore. We’ve got a chance to do a lot of cool things.
What did you think was the biggest challenge in the passing game today?
They played us early with a lot of coverage and wanted us to check it down and wanted us to get caught in the pocket and they had spies that were preventing him (Demond Williams Jr.) from getting out of the pocket. Early on, we needed to be more patient in the pocket and feel like, ‘Hey, they’re not really rushing internally, it’s more of an external rush.’ That was a good plan. We missed some check downs, the interception, we had Raiden (Vines-Bright) sitting right there that we could just pop it to and then not throw the one on one there. The safety made a good play. I think 10 out of 10 times that ball is going to get thrown, nine out of 10 times. When you have Denzel (Boston) and a linebacker one on one, you’re going to throw that. Safety did a great job covering. We had some other chances in the passing game that maybe we might have passed up early, but we felt like we only had a few plays that we had third and longs, so we needed to get some things going on in the second half.
