{"id":73449,"date":"2025-04-12T15:00:34","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T19:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=73449"},"modified":"2025-09-16T21:38:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:38:54","slug":"washingtons-jedd-fisch-talks-spring-standouts-and-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/04\/12\/washingtons-jedd-fisch-talks-spring-standouts-and-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington’s Jedd Fisch Talks Spring Standouts and Challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Spring practice season marches along as Washington nears the end of its second week on the field. Jedd Fisch commented on the progress his team has made thus far, discussing a couple of players who\u2019ve stood out. He also broke down some of the challenges that his offense has dealt with in regard to calling plays against Ryan Walters\u2019 defense<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Spring Stand Outs at Washington<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Defensive Back Stand Out<\/strong><\/h3>\n

At nickelback, Rahshawn Clark<\/a> is starting to emerge as a serious contender to earn a starting role. The redshirt freshman has pulled down four interceptions this Spring. Two of which were the one-handed variety. In addition to his four picks, he\u2019s also notched a pass breakup and consistently finds himself in a position to make a play on the ball or ball carrier. Clark was a two-way player in high school, lining up at receiver on the offensive side of the ball. He tracks the football like a receiver in coverage, and he\u2019s been taking advantage of his reps on the field.<\/span><\/p>\n

Clark is a hard-hitting and athletic defensive back who\u2019s earning increased time on the field with his level of play. \u201cThat nickel position is going to be huge for us,\u201d Fisch said after practice this week. He mentioned how Clark and Leroy Bryant<\/a> are two players competing for that position this Spring. Dyson McCutcheon<\/a> is also rotating at nickelback.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Running Back Stand Out<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Last year at this time, running back Jordan Washington<\/a> was 157 pounds. Fisch said after Tuesday\u2019s practice that he\u2019s now 185 pounds and playing a more physical brand of tailback. \u201cYou see his ability to take hits, and his ability to run the football, and his ability to make plays,\u201d Fisch said. \u201cThis is an opportunity for Jordan to go out and show what he can do to really give us that feeling of depth.\u201d Fisch added, \u201cWe know what Jonah can do\u2026so he doesn’t need a million caries [this Spring].” Washington has been taking a lot of reps at running back this Spring, and Fisch said that\u2019s by design.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As such, Washington is taking advantage of his increased carries. During Tuesday\u2019s practice, he showcased his track speed with a 60-yard touchdown run. Washington bounced to the outside along the near side, and as soon as he caught the edge on the defender, he was gone. Tiptoeing down the sideline, Washington blew past the secondary, turning heads with his acceleration. On Thursday, Washington showcased a similar run, beating a defensive back to the sideline and exploding upfield. With Jonah Coleman<\/a>‘s punishing style and Adam Mohammed<\/a>‘s versatility, Washington is a third option who brings elite speed to the backfield.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Battle Out Wide<\/strong><\/h3>\n

During Tuesday\u2019s practice, cornerback Caleb Presley<\/a> and wide receiver Omari Evans<\/a> went back and forth, battling and jawing with each other during one-on-one drills. It began on the first rep, where Presley locked up Evans at the line. The cornerback engaged with Evans, tying him up and keeping him from making his release. Quarterback Kai Horton<\/a> was forced to throw the ball away with Evans unable to begin his route. Secondary coach John Richardson was quick to dap up Presley while the defense roared. On his ensuing rep, Presley broke up a pass on a slant route over the middle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But then it was Evans\u2019 turn to get the upper hand. On a vertical sideline route, Evans got a step on Presley with his speed, and pulled down a one-handed catch as his momentum took him out of bounds. Shouts of \u201cYou can\u2019t guard me!\u201d could be heard with the two still going at it. Evans doubled down on his next rep, pulling down another grab over top of Presley. This time it was for a touchdown, and more back-and-forth could be heard.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Iron Sharpens Iron<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Presley and Evans high-fived each other after the one-on-one period ended. It\u2019s an \u201ciron sharpens iron\u201d kind of mentality between the two sides of the ball during these competition periods. This one-on-one precisely embodied that. Walters singled out Presley before the Spring began, saying it would be a \u201chuge\u201d Spring for the sophomore corner. Presley performed at a high level against a veteran in Evans, who\u2019s also trying to earn his way on a new team. Evans began the Spring with a string of three contested catches<\/a> in the team\u2019s first practice. The coaches have made it clear that the best 11 will play on either side of the ball. The competition between Presley and Evans is representative of the team’s internal competition and pursuit to get better.<\/span><\/p>\n

Challenges for the Offense<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Washington’s defense has unofficially notched 12 interceptions and 13 pass breakups through the first five Spring practices during team periods. Tacario Davis has one interception with four pass breakups thus far. “They [the defense] do play a lot of man coverage. And I think our corners are playing at a high level right now,” Fisch said after practice this week, discussing the challenges of facing Walters’ defense. “I can’t wait to see it when Prysock gets back and you’ve got the two 6-4 corners on either side,” Fisch added. Prysock suits up for practice and was in pads during the second week. But he doesn’t participate in contact drills. According to Fisch, he is not expected to return to the field until late spring at the earliest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re much bigger as a team, so moving the line of scrimmage is a challenge,\u201d Fisch said from the perspective of the play caller. \u201cSchematically, they\u2019ve got a lot of five down fronts, but you have a lot of guys dropping into the zone windows.\u201d The five-down defensive front is a common alignment for Walters\u2019 defense<\/a>, and it is being used to create a lot of different situations defensively. It allows the defense to create more pressure and havoc at the point of attack. It\u2019s also being used to disguise coverages, as Fisch mentioned. Dropping players into zone windows stresses the passing windows and has created turnovers this Spring.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo from Nick Lemkau<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Spring practice season marches along as Washington nears the end of its second week on the field. Jedd Fisch commented on the progress his team has made thus far, discussing a couple of players who\u2019ve stood out. He also broke down some of the challenges that his offense has dealt with in regard to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3944,"featured_media":73458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,35612],"tags":[7983,1666,33519,33197,10272,509,33385],"class_list":["post-73449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-bigten","category-washington-huskies","tag-big-ten-football","tag-jedd-fisch","tag-jordan-washington","tag-rahshawn-clark","tag-ryan-walters","tag-washington-huskies","tag-washington-spring-practice"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3944"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73449"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73459,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73449\/revisions\/73459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}