INDIANAPOLIS — As a former Pac-12 school, Washington touched down at Lucas Oil Stadium as an unfamiliar foe, but the Huskies might also question their reflection as they arrive in Indianapolis as a rebuilding squad in an unprecedented transition.
Just six months ago, Washington was the epicenter of the college football world, representing a dying conference taking on undefeated Michigan. Armed with Heisman runner-up quarterback Michael Penix Jr., star receiver Rome Odunze, and a wall of an offensive line that took home the Joe Moore Award, the Huskies mowed down USC, Texas, and twice dethroned rival Oregon.
Yet as the snow gave way to sunshine, that Pacific Northwest powerhouse is now a shell of itself as it embarks on its debut Big 10 season, taking on the Iowa Hawkeyes on Nov. 12 at Kinnick Stadium. Penix, Odunze, and all of the Huskies starting front five are donning either SEC or NFL colors.
Even the coach who led them to the promised land, Kalen DeBoer, made the difficult decision to fill in Nick Saban’s stead as the legendary Alabama coach announced an abrupt retirement.
So as new head coach Jedd Fisch stood before the podium and reminded media members that Washington won 25 of its last 28 games, his words rang a bit hollow.
“We respect our past but are excited about the future,” Fisch said. “We have to build on that success with a brand-new team, something that’s never been done before in college football.”
With a roster of 46 new scholarship athletes and 21 new starters, Washington is an unknown to its upcoming opponents, but it doesn’t view that characteristic as a disadvantage. Rather, through a combination of transfers, first-years, and veterans, the Huskies seek to form a bond that Fisch hopes will transform them into the toughest team in the conference.
“I want our opponents to feel like they’ve left that game and they’ve played two games in a row,” he said. “From there, we’ll let the score take care of itself. We’re not going to count wins and losses right now.”
A catalyst to creating this change will start under center, as Washington received transfer Will Rogers from Mississippi State. Starting 40 games and the only quarterback in SEC history to log more than 1,000 career completions, Rogers brings experience from the Air Raid and pro-style system, Fisch said. The head coach didn’t commit to a starting QB Thursday but added that whomever he chooses will be permanent barring injury.
While Rogers and the other quarterbacks have Brennan Carroll, son of former Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, in their ear as QB coach and offensive coordinator, the defense features another son of a legend in Steve Belichick, who will man a defense that retained some of its top talent in linebacker Carson Bruener and safety Kamren Fabiculanan.
Bruener, an All-Pac-12 honorable mention last season and the team’s third-leading tackler despite only starting one game, said he’s noticed changes to the team’s practice schedule that create more time for the team to stay together. Rather than ending team activities by the afternoon, the linebacker said the Huskies take short breaks throughout the day and are in the facility until 5 p.m.
“It took a little bit to get used to, to be honest,” he said. “But at the same time, we’re here to win football games, so we’ll do whatever it takes. Whether that’s being at the stadium all day and coming together as a team and doing outside things when it takes away from our free time – we just want to win football games.”
Bruener and Fabiculanan are actually well-versed to change, as the pair have undergone four different head coaches during their time in Seattle. While this year’s turnover may be the largest they’ve experienced, it’s nothing they can’t handle. A coach sets a culture, but if the players don’t take initiative among themselves, it doesn’t matter who puts on the headset.
“It starts with building trust with one another, building that brotherhood,” Fabiculanan said. “We’re the ones on the field, so at the end of the day we have to trust each other. Everything outside of football, whether that be barbeques, going to the lake, just being around each other all the time, building that connection so we can have another run at a national title.”
Michael Locksley embraces therapy and ‘not giving a crap’
Maryland football’s head coach Micahel Locksley uttered perhaps the most iconic line of media days at his opening statement when he proclaimed that his ‘give a crap gage’ is on empty.
“I’m not scared to dream big – I want my players to hear me talk about this,” the sixth-year head coach and recently-elected Mayor of Terpsville said. “It’s something to stand up here in front of you guys and tell you we want to compete for a Big Ten Championship and by doing so that allows us to hopefully compete for a national championship. Then I’d get ridiculed, get told I only won eight games.
“For a long time I used to worry about that,” he continued. “I want my players to dream big … We do that by not only supporting ourselves but by supporting our teammates.”
When the Hawkeyes arrive in the nation’s capital to square off against the Terrapins, they will see a coach who has reduced all the outside noise to static. Maryland hasn’t won more than nine games since 2003, but that statistic doesn’t stick with Locksley. He achieved this calm and confident demeanor through therapy, which he said he’s been attending once a week for the past two months.
“It lets you call people out, it lets you be vulnerable, it lets you say you don’t have all the answers,” Locksley said of therapy. “It gives you such a fresh perspective.”
The head coach doesn’t want anyone to put a ceiling on his program. After all, he’s never done so for himself. Fired as New Mexcio’s head coach after three seasons, Locksley worked as an offensive coordinator for the next seven years before getting a second shot, this time in the expanded Big Ten.
Aside from his own past, Locksley can look at the past of his program for reasons to be optimistic. The Terrapins have triumphed in three straight bowl games and posted back-to-back 8-win seasons for the first time since 2002-3. Even though Maryland lost its all-time leader in passing yards in quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, whose replacement plan Locksley is “still trying to figure out,” the Terrapins receiver room has plenty of potential.
Similar to tight ends at Iowa, wideouts at Maryland have a similar legacy, as former Terrapins include two-time Super Bowl champion Torrey Smith as well as NFL Pro Bowlers Stefon Diggs and D.J. Moore. This year’s room is headlined by seniors Tai Felton and Kaden Prather, each of whom sit on Athlon Sports’ second-team All-Big Ten preseason team.
“It’s not just how deep we are, it’s how unknown we are,” Felton said. “We’ve got some young players that can really go … that can really make a lot of plays this season.”
Receivers Felton highlighted include junior Shaleak Knotts and redshirt freshman Ryan Manning. The pair haven’t lit up the stat sheet by any means during their career, but in the spirit of their head coach, have the support of their teammates, which is all they really need.
“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about what they think about us,” Maryland linebacker Ruben Hyppolite II said. “But at the end of the day it’s about how we feel about us, what we do, and how we produce.”
Minnesota offensive reboot
Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck offered a sly reveal as to his team’s offensive woes in 2023. The Golden Gophers boasted the Big Ten’s Kicker of the Year in Dragan Kesich, who led his team in scoring with 96 points, drilled all 27 of his extra points attempts, and missed just four of his 27 field goal attempts.
While 96 points is still a considerable number, it’s also a fraction of what could’ve been, and Fleck has taken this ‘what if’ to heart.
“If you have the Big Ten Kicker of the Year, you’re probably not very good on offense because you’re kicking way too many field goals and that’s where we were at last year.”
In 2023, the Gophers ranked 103rd and 122nd in the FBS on third down conversion percentage and total offense, respectively. This season, Fleck is hoping for a spark, pairing two coaches on his staff, Greg Harbaugh Jr. and Matt Simon as co-offensive coordinators. Harbaugh had previously handled tight ends while Simon directed the offense and wide receivers.
Focal points to this duo-directed offense will be Daniel Jackson, who earned second-team All-Big Ten honors last season, as well as running back Darius Taylor, whose 2023 started hot with 532 rushing yards in his first four contests before nagging injuries kept limited him to just one more game in the regular season. Taylor, who hails from Detroit, Michigan, made a triumphant return in the Gophers’ bowl game, plowing for a season-high 208 rushing yards in a victory over Bowling Green.
“I’ve been doing preventative workouts, preventative treatment, and doing a lot to strenghen my muscles and tendons,” the running back said. “I’ve been doing a lot of hydrating before workouts and making sure my warmups are sufficient before I get going.”