{"id":81215,"date":"2025-10-15T10:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T14:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=81215"},"modified":"2025-10-14T22:59:37","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T02:59:37","slug":"husky-travel-adjustments-early-kickoff-at-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/10\/15\/husky-travel-adjustments-early-kickoff-at-michigan\/","title":{"rendered":"Husky Travel Adjustments, Early Kickoff at Michigan"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time this season, and for the third time since joining the Big Ten, the Huskies will kick off at 9:00 am local time. Michigan hosts Washington for Big Noon Saturday in Ann Arbor. The early time slot was a challenge for Washington last season, losing at Iowa 40-16 and at Indiana 31-17. But Jedd Fisch is taking a different approach to early away games this season. \u201cI don’t look at it as a 9:00 am start, I look at it as a 12 o\u2019clock start,\u201d Fisch said on Monday of this week. \u201cI was in the NFL for 14 years, we never once said this is a 10:00 am kick or an 11:00 am kick. The kick is when the time is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Washington’s Early Kickoff at Michigan<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Travel Adjustments\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Fisch has discussed road trip preparations with Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald. \u201cI talked to Coach Macdonald, and I’ve asked him a bunch of things,\u201d Fisch said. \u201cWe adjusted our schedule when we played Maryland<\/a> to make it similar to what the Seahawks do for a four o’clock [road] kickoff.\u201d Washington flew to College Park later in the day on Thursday, arriving in the evening. For the early kickoff this week at Michigan, Fisch is making a similar adjustment. \u201cWe adjusted our schedule this week to make it similar to what the Seahawks do for a 10:00 am kickoff, which is 1:00 pm Eastern.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Upon talking with Macdonald, Fisch noted that the two biggest changes he needed to make had to do with the departure time and with the size of the plane. \u201cWe\u2019re flying on a bigger plane, we\u2019re leaving at a different time on Thursday,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are giving our guys a different schedule leading up to the game. We\u2019re practicing on Thursday morning, we\u2019re walking through on Friday outside. We\u2019re doing things different.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The victory at Maryland made it seem as though the travel changes had a positive impact. Though it still took a few quarters of football before the Huskies got into a rhythm on the road. Slow starts have been an issue for Washington in Big Ten play thus far.<\/span><\/p>\n

Addressing Slow Starts<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Washington is outsourcing its opponents 80-10 in the fourth quarter this season. But in each of its last three games, Washington has scored zero first-quarter points. The Huskies have started all three Big Ten Conference games this season with a deficit. They needed 24 unanswered points to beat Maryland and had to fight from down 10-0 to defeat Rutgers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On Monday, Fisch addressed the recent slow starts. But said his message to the team was this, \u201cYou don’t win games in the first quarter or the second quarter or the third quarter. The games are decided at the end of the game.\u201d It\u2019s never ideal to begin a game, but Fisch said he likes the way the team has responded to the adversity. \u201cWhat I love is that our players didn\u2019t blink. There was no flinch.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Saturday morning, or afternoon, inside Michigan Stadium figures to be the biggest test of Washington’s season thus far, outside of Ohio State. \u201cThere\u2019ll be 105 thousand, sold out, packed, which we know.\u201d Fisch said on Monday. \u201cWe\u2019re excited about the opportunity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Image: Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time this season, and for the third time since joining the Big Ten, the Huskies will kick off at 9:00 am local time. Michigan hosts Washington for Big Noon Saturday in Ann Arbor. The early time slot was a challenge for Washington last season, losing at Iowa 40-16 and at Indiana 31-17. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3944,"featured_media":77212,"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":[5,35612],"tags":[1666,34706],"class_list":["post-81215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigten","category-washington-huskies","tag-jedd-fisch","tag-mike-macdonald"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81215","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=81215"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81219,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81215\/revisions\/81219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}