How Jedd Fisch is trying to make UW resemble a ‘professional organization’

Jedd Fisch stood at the podium Wednesday afternoon overlooking the newly refurbished team room at Husky Stadium. 

Plush white seats stared back at him. To Fisch’s right, Trent McDuffie’s likeness stands over the entrance. Napoleon Kaufman’s face adorns the freshly painted white walls on Fisch’s left. Dillon Johnson occupies the back of the room, with the program’s motto R.A.I.S.E. emblazoned over his image: Respect, accountability, integrity, selflessness, enthusiasm. 

The renovations to the team room have been going on for nearly a year. It’s symbolic of the infrastructural changes the Huskies have undergone since Fisch took over.

“We really want this to look as close to a professional organization as we can to be able to give the college students the best opportunity they can to be successful,” Fisch said

Washington and Fisch made a series of coaching hires official Wednesday, while also announcing a restructuring of the team’s personnel department. Fisch said UW has added around 11 full-time positions during the offseason, which he believes will lead to better development and recruiting while putting UW on par operationally with some of the country’s top programs. 

“If we’re trying to get to the (College Football Playoff), we’ve got to look at our competitors being Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon, USC, Georgia, Alabama, programs like that,” Fisch said. “If those guys are going to be our competitors, then we need to make sure we’re matching them with effort and with personnel.”

Even without reorganizing the team’s internal hierarchy, Fisch was forced into making some changes to his coaching staff this season. 

Offensive coordinator Brennan Carroll, who also coached the offensive line, departed to reunite in the NFL with his father Pete Carroll on the Las Vegas Raiders’ staff. Defensive coordinator Steve Belichick joined his father Bill Belichick at North Carolina, while safeties coach Vinnie Sunseri and linebackers coach Robert Bala both left for co-defensive coordinator jobs with Billy Napier at Florida. 

Fisch promoted assistant offensive-line coach Michael Switzer to replace Carroll as a position coach, while giving quarterbacks coach Jimmie Dougherty the offensive coordinator title. He hired Ryan Walters as UW’s new defensive coordinator and added Taylor Mays as safeties coach. 

Fisch also confirmed Wednesday that Brian Odom will take over as linebackers coach for Bala. Odom, who spent time working with Walters at Missouri, was most recently at North Texas. Fisch noted Odom’s track record as a recruiter at Oklahoma and USC made him an attractive candidate for the job. 

“Talking to coaches that have worked with (Odom) before — head coaches that I know very well as well as assistant coaches — they all love his work ethic, they love his character, they love his family,” Fisch said. “We feel really fortunate to bring him, his wife, and his kids to Seattle.”

But Fisch and the Huskies also added a slew of new assistant position coaches and quality control analysts to the staff this season. The NCAA Division I Council removed limits on countable on-field coaches in June, 2024, though programs are still only allowed 11 off-campus recruiters. 

Washington has added assistant quarterbacks coach J.P. Losman, assistant defensive line coach Korey Rush and assistant offensive line coach Mike Brewster during the past several weeks. UW also promoted Aaron Van Horn to outside linebackers coach, Dom Caldwell to assistant running backs coach, Caleb Wilson to assistant wide receivers coach and Kirkland Parker to assistant defensive backs coach. 

Fisch said the Huskies won’t have to designate their 11 off-campus recruiters until a later date, but expects it to be the team’s position assistants: Fisch, Dougherty, Walters, running backs coach Scottie Graham, wide receivers coach Kevin Cummings, tight ends coach Jordan Paopao, Switzer, defensive line coach Jason Kaufusi, Odom, secondary coach John Richardson and Mays. 

The Huskies also brought in special teams coordinator Chris Petrilli and assistant special teams coordinator Greg Froelich, removing the responsibility from Paopao. Petrilli was previously Purdue’s special teams coordinator under Walters, while Froelich, who played for Fisch at Michigan, was most recently at Charlotte. 

“We felt like we needed two people solely committed, two people who had coordinated before,” Fisch said. 

UW’s infrastructural changes didn’t stop with the on-field staff. The Huskies promoted Matt Doherty to senior director of player personnel, Jacob Crawford to director of player personnel and Erik Hamburg to assistant director of player personnel. 

Fisch also hired former Bellevue standout Marcus Griffin as director of recruiting to replace Josh Omura, who left during the offseason for Arizona State. 

UW added former UCLA safety Jaleel Wadood as the team’s director of high school relations and Silas Clapham as the director of college scouting, too. Neither position existed during the 2024 season, and Fisch said Wadood will be focused on high school recruiting while Clapham, previously the director of player personnel at Hawaii, is responsible for transfer portal recruiting. 

None of these newly added positions, however, include a general manager.

Several programs around the country have added general managers during the past several seasons. Bill Belichick gave Michael Lombardi the title at North Carolina as one of his first actions after being hired by the Tar Heels. Oklahoma hired Jim Nagy as its football general manager on Wednesday. Courtney Morgan previously held the title at Washington under Kalen DeBoer, and now serves the same role at Alabama. 

Fisch said he doesn’t understand why a college football program needs a general manager. 

He said there’s a distinct difference between a director of player personnel and a general manager in the NFL. Namely that general managers, in Fisch’s experience, have significantly more responsibilities than assembling the roster. 

“We’re asking Matt Doherty to be fully focused on how to run a personnel department,” Fisch said. “That’s a full-time job, and I don’t want to take Matt away from the day to day of that job to create some title that I don’t believe we need right now.”

Fisch expects the investment in new coaching and support staff positions, along with the reorganization of the team’s internal infrastructure, will lead to player improvement. 

He said the Huskies have more capacity to evaluate players and recruit at a higher level after Fisch felt their recruiting department lagged behind a year ago. The UW coach also joked it might mean he can get a few more hours of sleep per week. 

However, Fisch said he believes the biggest improvements from the larger staff will come in player development. For example, Fisch noted having an assistant quarterbacks coach like Losman will allow Dougherty to focus more on working with presumed starter Demond Williams Jr., while younger quarterbacks like incoming freshmen Dash Beierly and Treston “Kini” McMillan can still learn the game from Losman. 

“We felt we could do that all the way across the board,” Fisch said. “Now, we’re able to have a guy assigned to every position group. To be able to do that, all our younger players are going to benefit.”