Ten years ago, Jim Harbaugh took the helm of the Michigan football team. The former Wolverines quarterback, turned quarterback whisperer at Stanford and the San Francisco 49ers, was tasked with restoring the program.
To do so, Harbaugh brought in almost an entirely new staff before his first year. Most of them crossed paths with Harbaugh at some point in his career. However, to coach the most important position — once his own position — Harbaugh made an exception.
During Harbaugh’s first two years, 2015 and 2016, Jedd Fisch served as Michigan’s quarterbacks coach, wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator. Saturday, the Fisch, now Washington’s coach, will return to Ann Arbor for the first time in nine years.
“It’s a great atmosphere,” Fisch said Monday. “I had a chance to coach there for two years and we won a lot of games there. We were 20-4 in the two years that we were there. We had, certainly, opportunities to play in some of the biggest games, biggest rivalries at Michigan. And that was fun. It’s an awesome place. And it’s super cool that they sell out every game. They have unbelievable energy and our guys are gonna be excited about this opportunity and be fired up to be part of something like a Washington-Michigan game.”
Like Harbaugh, Fisch is a coach who has built his career on developing quarterbacks. Harbaugh brought Fisch in freshly off his dismissal as the Jacksonville Jaguars offensive coordinator. Before that he spent time with Minnesota, the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and Miami.
At Michigan, Fisch worked with Jake Rudock and Wilton Speight as the starters during his tenure. Rudock came from Iowa in 2015 with just one season of eligibility remaining. Under Fisch, he put up the then-second, now-third, most passing yards in a season in program history. After leading the Wolverines to a 10-3 record, he became a sixth-round selection and played five seasons at the next level.
Speight maintained the standard Rudock set in 2016 — Harbaugh’s most successful season until 2021. With a moderately efficient 18-to-7 touchdown-to-interception ratio on the season, Speight commanded Michigan to a nine-game win streak to open the year. Speight was again the starter to open 2017, but missed most of the season with injury before transferring to UCLA. Speight’s one year with Fisch in 2016, however, remained his career year.
Fisch, ironically, spent that 2017 season with the Bruins while Speight remained with the Wolverines. He was hired as the offensive coordinator and ended the year as interim coach following a midseason dismissal of UCLA’s head coach. For the following three years, Fisch coached in the NFL. His most notable work was with Cam Newton on the New England Patriots in the season following Tom Brady’s departure.
Since, Fisch has been back in the college ranks as a head coach. In three years at Arizona, he perfected his craft at developing quarterbacks. He transformed the Wildcats from a 1-11 team his first year into a top-15 team his final year. The driving force behind that was the emergence of quarterback Noah Fifita, who took over the job midway through his sophomore year in 2023. He burst onto the scene throwing for an average of 311 yards across nine starts — including a 527-yard, five-touchdown performance against Arizona State.
At Washington, Fisch is revitalizing the program in the same way. Following a 6-7 first year, his Huskies are 5-1 — largely because he’s developed a star quarterback in Demond Williams Jr.
“He’s dangerous,” Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said Monday. “He’s dangerous running the ball, he’s dangerous throwing the ball, he’s dangerous when it’s a scramble play. So, we have to do a great job containing him and making him uncomfortable in whatever facet we decide to do that in, that’s gonna be the key to stopping him (and) winning the game.”
Williams is averaging over 270 yards a game and boasts an impressive 10-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. The only team that’s been able to slow him down this season was Ohio State, who have arguably the nation’s best defense and best defensive back in Caleb Downs.
Against every other opponent, Williams has slung it all over the field — winning two Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week awards in the process. And the first-year starter just keeps getting better as the season goes on. In Washington’s most recent win over Maryland, he threw for over 400 yards and five touchdowns.
Williams is the most recent in Fisch’s long list of successful quarterbacks, and up there with the best of them. Fisch’s prowess convinced Harbaugh to bring him to Ann Arbor a decade ago and brought about success for Rudock, Speight and Michigan.
In the nine years that have followed, Fisch has further perfected his craft. The Wolverines have no choice but to respect his expertise — thus, their attention Saturday will primarily be on the “dangerous” Williams under center.
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