UW Huskies coach Jedd Fisch on 4th-and-goal play: ‘I made a bad call’

SEATTLE – Nearly a decade after the Seattle Seahawks’ crushing Super 49 loss, the UW Huskies now have their own version of a goal-line heartbreak.

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Like that fateful Russell Wilson interception back in 2015, this one is sure to leave fans questioning the play call.

Trailing by five points with 1:07 left in the 116th Apple Cup on Saturday afternoon, UW had a 4th-and-goal at the 1-yard line, with the ball spotted on the right hash mark. The Huskies lined up, then called a timeout to talk things over. Following the timeout, with the Lumen Field crowd roaring, quarterback Will Rogers took a shotgun snap and ran a speed option to the short side of the field.

WSU’s defense swarmed and clogged his path to the end zone, forcing him to pitch the ball to running back Jonah Coleman. With little space between Coleman and the sideline, multiple WSU defenders closed in and brought down the powerful 229-pound back for a 2-yard loss that ultimately helped seal a 24-19 Apple Cup triumph for the Cougars.

“That’s on me,” UW head coach Jedd Fisch said. “I made a bad call. We didn’t execute the call. We lost the game. So I take that. I’m the play caller. I’m responsible. And we didn’t get it done.”

Fisch said that before the timeout, the plan was to target senior wide receiver Giles Jackson on a passing play. Jackson had a massive game, hauling in eight catches for 162 yards and a touchdown – including a deep 45-yard reception that kickstarted UW’s final drive to the 1-yard line.

“Giles had a great game,” Fisch said. “We tried to get Giles the ball for the final touchdown on 4th-and-1 initially, but probably should have done that. He was playing outstanding.”

Fisch said he didn’t like the initial look from WSU’s defense, which prompted his pivot to the speed option call after the timeout. He said the speed option was a play the Huskies had in their pocket all week long.

“We felt that was going to be our gotta-have-it call if we ever needed one for a yard,” Fisch said. “(It) looks like we didn’t block it properly. … I didn’t like the look that we had, so we changed the call into that one. Probably should have just let it ride the first time through and see what it would have looked like.

“But I guess if you throw it incomplete, then you should have ran it. If you run it, if you don’t get it, you should have thrown it. That was the call we had against that front, and we’ve got to do a better job blocking it and executing. But clearly, it didn’t work.”

WSU head coach Jake Dickert credited his defensive staff for coming up with the right play call.

“We showed them a look that we’ve done before, but we had a little bit of a changeup to it,” Dickert said. “… So they thought they’d get the speed option out the back door, and we didn’t give them the blitz look of what it looked to be. I thought they made the right call with what we showed them, but credit to our defensive staff. That’s two weeks in a row of just coming with a great plan and our guys just flying around making plays.”

That fourth-down play capped an afternoon full of missed opportunities for the Huskies’ offense. UW outgained WSU 452-381 in total yardage and didn’t commit a turnover, but settled for field goals far too often. UW snapped the ball inside the WSU 30-yard line on five different drives, but came away with just 12 points on those five possessions – which ended with four field goals and the last-minute turnover on downs.

“Can’t trade touchdowns for field goals,” Fisch said.

COSTLY PENALTIES

The Apple Cup turned into a parade of penalties for the Huskies. UW finished with 16 penalties for 135 yards, significantly more than WSU’s six flags for 45 yards.

The most costly penalty came on WSU’s first possession of the second half. With the Cougars facing a 3rd-and-18 from their own 26-yard line, the Huskies sacked John Mateer for a 10-yard loss that would have forced a punt. But instead, UW cornerback Jordan Shaw was flagged for a defensive holding penalty that gave WSU an automatic first down.

Three plays later, the Cougs were in the end zone. WSU followed the automatic first down with a 37-yard gain by running back Wayshawn Parker, an 11-yard completion from Mateer to Kris Hutson and a 16-yard TD reception by Josh Meredith that extended the Cougars’ lead to 24-16.

“We had way too many penalties,” Fisch said. “We had 10 more penalties than they did. You usually aren’t going to win when you have that many penalties in a game. I’m very disappointed in the 15-yard penalties that we had. We need to be far better there. Again, I take responsibility for that, and we will be better there. That’s not who we are, and that’s not how we play.”

The Dawgs had a number of other penalties in key spots.

On the Huskies’ first drive of the second half, a second-down false start on the WSU 10-yard line put them behind the sticks and contributed to them settling for a field goal. With the ball just inside midfield near the halfway point of the fourth quarter, an intentional grounding penalty on Rogers backed them into a 2nd-and-long. And a few plays later, while lining up to go for it on 4th-and-6, a false start forced them to punt.

Penalties even cost the Huskies any hope of a last-second miracle.

Shortly after WSU’s late goal-line stop, the Cougars had a 3rd-and-11 from their own 2-yard line with 1:02 to play. The Huskies didn’t have any timeouts left, but if they had gotten a stop in that situation, they could have forced WSU to punt from its own end zone with around 15 to 20 seconds remaining. The Cougars also may have elected to take a safety in that instance, which would have allowed them to bleed a few more seconds and kick or punt from farther downfield.

Either way, UW potentially could have gotten the ball back with enough time for a Hail Mary. Instead, the Huskies jumped offside on back-to-back plays. And because play was allowed to continue on the second offside, the clock resumed ticking after that, allowing WSU to run out the remaining time.

“Really, really disappointed in 16 penalties,” Fisch said. “And I don’t have a good answer on what I attribute it to, but I know that I’ve gotta get it fixed.”

BRUENER HURT

UW senior linebacker Carson Bruener was injured after tackling Mateer in the fourth quarter. He appeared to hurt his arm or shoulder. Fisch didn’t have an update on Bruener’s status after the game.

Bruener, a Redmond High School alum, has 217 career tackles in his four seasons with the Huskies. He was the third-leading tackler on last year’s national runner-up team.

LOOKING AHEAD

One challenge of this year’s Apple Cup is that UW doesn’t have much time to dwell on the loss. The Huskies make their Big Ten debut next Saturday against Northwestern at Husky Stadium.

“It’s just a really sad locker room right now with a lot of sad guys that need to bounce back, because unlike a normal year where this is the last game of the year, we play Northwestern in seven days, and it’s our job to be ready for that game and never let a team beat us twice,” Fisch said.

Video: Caple’s reaction to WSU’s Apple Cup win over UW Huskies

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