Before I turned off responses on Thursday night, 603 of you had taken On Montlake’s December 2024 UW Huskies football subscriber survey.
Sun Bowl Preview: UW looks to secure winning season vs Louisville
Thanks to everyone who weighed in on Jedd Fisch’s approval rating, your expectations for 2025, your interest in the Sun Bowl, how you would fix college football and why this sport continues to hold your interest.
Let’s examine the results.
1. State of UW Huskies football
A healthy majority gave the Huskies a middling grade of 3, with 22.4% going one grade higher at 4; the weighted average of all responses was 3.18. Not sure I’d have believed a year ago that UW could do anything following an appearance in the national-title game to warrant such middling results … but then Nick Saban retired. Combine the coaching change with the Big Ten transition and a 6-6 record, and you get a program in flux. More than 93% of respondents to our summer 2023 survey graded the state of the program as a 4 or 5.
2. Jedd Fisch approval rating
Fisch’s approval rating outpaces the state of the program, with more than half of respondents giving the coach a 4; the weighted average of all respondents was 3.64. This confirmed my sense that fans are relatively pleased with Fisch’s performance so far, considering the circumstances surrounding his arrival. Game-management and playcalling were targets of criticism throughout the season, but getting the team to a bowl game in the wake of so much turnover should be considered an accomplishment.
3. UW Huskies athletic administration
Honestly, there isn’t much data with which to properly assess Chun’s tenure, which began only nine months ago. He has hired two head coaches in that time — baseball coach Eddie Smith and gymnastics coach Jessa Hansen Parker — though his predecessor, Troy Dannen, hired Fisch and laid the groundwork to hire new men’s basketball Danny Sprinkle (Erin O’Connell, the department’s chief operating officer, was interim AD when Sprinkle’s hire became official). So I’m not too surprised to see a near-even split between 3s and 4s. We need to see how Chun leads the department through all the upcoming changes in college athletics and navigates UW’s half-share life in the Big Ten before reaching any broad conclusions.
4. UW Huskies football assistant coaches
Generally favorable responses here, with the 4s outpacing the 3s, and more than 63% of respondents selecting 4 or 5. I’m guessing UW’s 2025 recruiting class has at least something to do with that, as the Huskies seemed to address personnel needs across the board. The staff will look different next season as defensive coordinator Steve Belichick leaves to join his dad at North Carolina.
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6. UW Huskies football recruiting
Like I said, early returns on Fisch’s recruiting are pretty favorable, with 76.1% of respondents giving a grade of 4 or 5, and almost nobody going any lower than 3. The Huskies signed 29 high-school players in their 2025 class, which currently ranks 23rd nationally in the 247Sports Composite. With a focus on the trenches, it’s a group that Fisch hopes will form the foundation of UW’s adaptation to the rugged Big Ten.
7. The transfer portal
The results here aren’t quite as favorable as UW’s high-school recruiting, but are still solid, with nearly half of respondents giving Fisch’s portal use a 4. A sizable chunk (35%) settled in the middle at 3. You never know until you see them on the field, but I do think UW’s portal haul this month is of greater caliber than what the Huskies brought in last spring. So I’d guess the grades given here are probably higher than what they would have been six months ago.
8. Fisch’s NFL-style program
Not much to analyze here, as nearly 93% of respondents said they either like or love Fisch’s NFL-style program. I wonder whether we might see more college coaches leaning into NFL-centric messaging as the sport continues to evolve in that direction.
9. The upcoming Sun Bowl against Louisville
This is one of the questions for which I was most interested to see the responses. Exactly half of you are somewhat interested in Tuesday’s game, with a little more than one-third remaining very interested. That’s greater interest than I expected for a Sun Bowl game played 364 days after a College Football Playoff semifinal victory. Louisville is an 8-4 team whose four defeats all came by one score, but the Cardinals have had several key players opt out of the game, including their starting quarterback and top receiver. Washington has lost a few contributors to the portal, but not many, and freshman quarterback Demond Williams Jr. will be making his second career start. That makes things more intriguing for the Huskies.
10. UW Huskies expectations in 2025
This is at least relatively realistic. The overwhelming majority expect eight-plus wins in Fisch’s second season, but more were willing to aim for seven wins than set the bar at a CFP appearance. That’s probably fair, considering how far from the CFP the Huskies were in Year 1. I’m guessing the results will look a bit different here going into 2026.
11. Will Fisch win a conference title?
There wasn’t total pessimism here, as about three-in-10 respondents believe UW will win a conference title under Fisch. But a healthy majority don’t see it happening, which I assume is primarily a reflection of the massive league’s multiple behemoths already positioned for annual title contention.
12. Will Fisch lead Huskies to a CFP game win?
There was a time when you pretty much couldn’t have answered “no” to the previous question and then answered “yes” to this one, but the 12-team Playoff obviously changes things. Nearly two out of every three respondents believe Fisch will not only get UW to the CFP, but will win at least one game there. As for whether the Huskies will make it any further …
13. Will Fisch lead Washington to a national title?
The Huskies were one victory shy of winning a title just last season, but they face a daunting climb back to those heights. The results reflect that reality. If nothing else, the 43 “yes” respondents may forever regard themselves as true believers.
14. Will Fisch stay with the UW Huskies?
The results here also are colored by realism (or perhaps just resignation). For what it’s worth: when I asked this question in summer 2023 about DeBoer, only 37.1% voted “yes,” which kind of surprised me. Even before the title run, there was a sense that DeBoer wouldn’t be at UW forever.
15. College football fandom
I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve noticed a handful of folks move on from their On Montlake subscription while noting that they just aren’t that into college football anymore. Hence the philosophical questions in this year’s survey. Still, more than 80% of respondents said they at least still love the sport, or love it as much as (or more than) they ever have. I sort of expected to see more than 12% land in that 3 category.
16. Your interest in UW Huskies and college football
This question dovetails off the previous one. Based on the responses to the fandom question, I expected a larger percentage would select the blue option here, but that tally came in just under 10%. Beyond the five options I gave, some selected “other” and wrote in their own reasons, such as:
• “I will live and breathe UW football no matter what. I may hate the changes, but I still die with the Dawgs.”
• “I’ve been going to games since I was 10 (I’m now 40). It’s the one thing in my life I am fanatical about.”
• “It is a more captivating product than the NFL. The schematic diversity of college football is attractive.”
• “I enjoy seeing players and coaches strive for success. Pros are more like finished products.”
• “Habit.”
• “Irrational obsession.”
• “I’m addicted.”
• “This is just a period of time of deregulation. It will get sorted out and be better down the road.”
• “I became a fan in ’07 (!) after moving away from Seattle as a way to stay connected. And I wanted to see how/if this proud program would return to success. It’s incredibly interesting to watch my alma mater, as a very good program but not a blue blood, navigate the strangest and most convoluted sports league in America. Trying to get and stay ahead in a sport with 140+ teams that makes almost no attempt to create parity is super engaging. Plus, football is fun and we tend to be pretty good.”
• “A mix of supporting alma mater and history/tradition. As a former Husky Marching Band member, I have a lot of good memories around the program (even if I was there for the downfall of Neuheisel and the Tyrone Willingham debacle). However, it is getting harder and harder to stay interested given the landscape.”
17. Will you attend a game?
A little less than three-fourths of you are pretty sure you’ll attend games next season (and I’ll assume some number of the yellow and green respondents simply live out of town). UW’s 2025 home schedule: Colorado State, UC Davis, Ohio State, Rutgers, Illinois, Purdue and Oregon. That’s two CFP quarterfinal teams (or better), plus another two bowl-bound conference opponents, an eight-win Mountain West team and an FCS quarterfinal team. (Also, Purdue.) The Huskies will carry a 20-game home winning streak into the season. What’s your early projection for their home record?
18. The Big Ten
Opinions varied here. The most popular grade was 7, with 8 the runner-up, ahead of 6, ahead of 9, ahead of 3. All of UW’s fall sports teams achieved some form of postseason participation, but the football team’s 6-6 showing and the department’s much-publicized financial disadvantages likely contribute to mixed reaction to the move so far.
19. Traveling to UW Huskies road games
That’s Michigan (dark purple) in the lead, just ahead of Wisconsin (pink-ish), Ohio State (light purple) and Penn State (dark green). Nebraska (light green, 7.5%) rounded out the top five. No other school received more than 5%.
20. How would you change CFB?
As you can see, nearly half of respondents would address the transfer portal first. Geography remaining central to conference alignment is another wish, along with some form of a salary cap.
A sampling of “other” write-in responses:
• “All of the above.” (There were a bunch of these.)
• “Get the superconference formed, and allow non-revenue sports to go back to regional conferences (that’s two, but related).”
• “Institute a centralized college sports governing body tasked with protecting the interests of all of college sports. A real one this time, with actual authority over member schools and conferences, and which doesn’t just exist to pretend to enforce recruiting violations.”
• “Make it organized like the NFL. One governing body, divisions based on geography, division winners make the playoffs. And a CBA with the players.”
21. A hypothetical
The number of respondents who would be completely put off by such a thing is more than double the number who wouldn’t care at all, for whatever that might be worth. A comfortable majority said they would still at least watch the sport, even if nearly half said they would stop any financial support. Would college football ever morph this drastically into a full-on professional league?
22. NIL contributions
About three out of every 10 of you are paying players, while 43% are not but could be convinced, and 27.8% say they never will.
23. Who is your favorite player on the UW Huskies roster?
This was a write-in category, which means it’s not easy to tabulate precisely (it also means fewer respondents). It essentially wound up a dead heat between Carson Bruener and Jonah Coleman, with Bruener receiving 170 votes to Coleman’s 168. Because some of those respondents listed both — or listed one or the other in a “tie” with another player, etc. — it’s difficult to determine a true winner, so we’ll call it a tie.
Demond Williams Jr. received the third-most votes (about 60), with Denzel Boston not far behind at 39ish. Kam Fabiculanan, Landen Hatchett, Adam Mohammed, Decker DeGraaf and Grady Gross were the next-most popular responses. Many others received one or more votes.
A few respondents said they don’t have a favorite player. Another few wrote in some version of “Khmori House … oh wait.” One person simply wrote “The Punter.”
This article was originally published at OnMontlake.com, the home for Christian Caple’s full UW Huskies football coverage. Subscribe to On Montlake for full access to in-depth UW Huskies coverage.
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