Is it me or is the Seattle media stepping up to the plate lately???
By Mike Vorel
Seattle Times columnist
The play call was bad.
The response was not much better.
At 3:57 p.m. on Saturday, on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line, Will Rogers took a shotgun snap and sprinted sideways — which, ironically, is when things went south. After being engulfed by a wall of crashing crimson at the 3, he lateraled to running back Jonah Coleman, who was wrestled out of bounds by linebacker Kyle Thornton to cement the final score:
Washington State 24, Washington 19
In a fourth-down flub bound to flounder in Apple Cup infamy, Husky coach Jedd Fisch dialed up a speed option with two important asterisks:
The play was run to the short side of the field, further condensing the available space on the edge of the end zone
The call highlighted the legs of a Husky quarterback with — checks notes — minus-350 career rushing yards in four-plus seasons at Washington and Mississippi State.
In the immediate aftermath Saturday, Fisch admitted: “That’s on me. I made a bad call. We didn’t execute the call. We lost the game.”
Never mind that Rogers’ right arm was working plenty well, having completed 23 of 31 passes for 314 yards and one touchdown. Or that wide receiver Giles Jackson was enjoying the game of his life, with eight catches for 162 yards and a score (plus 24 catches on 24 targets this fall). Or that Coleman — a 229-pound bowling ball — is uniquely built to push a pile.
No, per Fisch, the speed option was their “got to have it” call.
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Got it? Maybe not.
With all that said: Fisch deserved credit for the accountability.
Until he was asked again.
“We had a chance. We didn’t execute the play,” Fisch said Monday, 45 hours after the fourth-down fiasco. “I told the team last year it was fourth-and-one with 1:15 left on the minus-29, the 11-0 Washington team against the 5-6 Washington State team, and they converted a reverse. A year later, it’s fourth-and-one with 1:12 left, with a 24-19 game, and we don’t convert on an option play. It happens.
“If the reverse doesn’t convert, Washington State wins last year, 24-21. So in our case, the option play didn’t convert, and we didn’t execute the play. If we executed the play, it would have converted.”
If we executed the play, it would have converted.
Which sounds a lot like: it was the players, not the play.
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We’re not even disagreeing that the play could have worked, by the way. In explaining the execution error, the 48-year-old Fisch — a four-time offensive coordinator across college football and the NFL — said: “If you’re going to run option football, you have to leave one guy [unblocked on the edge]. And when you don’t leave a guy, 52 [Thornton] becomes the guy who makes the tackle. [Thornton] should have been blocked. [Linebacker Taariq (Buddah) Al-Uqdah] should have been free and had to defend the quarterback and the running back.
“Oregon ran the same play against Oregon State for [54 yards] on the short side of the field on Saturday. Same play. Wound up just blocking it a little differently.”
Same play.
Different players.
Besides the circumstances — namely, that Oregon faced 54 yards of green grass, instead of being bottled by an end zone inches away — consider the ball carrier. Oregon ran the option with Dillon Gabriel, a capable dual threat with 1,086 career rushing yards. The call and skill set were in sync. Same with last season’s aforementioned reverse, in which Washington trusted Rome Odunze — the program’s most rugged open-field runner — to win the Apple Cup.
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Point being: Fisch’s speed option certainly could have worked. But how is that your best possible play? Your “got to have it” call?
“It was almost as if you could not have come up with a worse call,” former UW quarterback Brock Huard said on 710 AM Seattle Sports.
On Monday, UW’s first-year coach turned a disappointing magic trick, making that admirable accountability disappear. In doing so, a man making an annual average of $7.75 million put the onus on his players.
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What kind of message does that send to Rogers, Coleman and the other Huskies following Fisch out of the tunnel? What about the coveted recruits considering Washington?
It doesn’t matter that the play could have worked, that the players — not the coaches — blocked the incorrect Cougs. It’s Fisch’s job to put those players in positions to succeed, to ensure they execute. When they don’t, it’s also his job to assume responsibility. That’s the burden that comes with being the Huskies’ coach, with promoting a positive culture.
Or, as Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell said after failing to convert two fourth-down tries in a 34-31 NFC Championship Game loss to the 49ers in January: “I understand the scrutiny I’ll get — that’s part of the gig — but it just didn’t work out.”
It just didn’t work out for Washington.
But on Monday, Fisch made matters worse.
None of which dooms his UW tenure to repeated disappointment. This is still an accomplished coach and play-caller with a top 20 recruiting class. It’s still a program blessed with weekly opportunities, starting with a Big Ten opener against Northwestern on Saturday. It’s still a school with (at least) four more cracks at the Apple Cup.
But for now, that call is bound to follow Fisch.
“That’s on me. I made a bad call,” Fisch said Saturday.
That’s all he had to say.
