In Jedd Fisch's third season at the helm of the Washington Huskies, his team has scored just ten points on opening possessions through nine games. The lone touchdown came against FCS opponent Eastern Washington, while Saturday's 14-play, 65-yard drive against Penn State, which ended in a field goal, looked like the Huskies' most cohesive opening drive of the year.
However, one of just two drives in Big Ten play that didn't end in a three-and-out (Elijah Brown threw an interception on the first play of the game at Purdue) came to a grinding halt after Fisch deployed a two-quarterback personnel package in the red zone. Over Washington's next three drives, which spanned just nine plays and all ended in three-and-outs, Fisch's offense gained just eight
yards.
As Ryan Walters' defense struggled early, the Huskies found themselves in a 28-6 halftime hole against the Nittany Lions, and the slow start wound up being insurmountable in a 28-25 loss.
"I don't know, I really don't have a good answer for you," Fisch said when asked about his team's slow starts. "I thought we needed to come out and be able to handle whatever we're getting, be able to make plays at home and be able to start fast, or at least start moderately fast, and we haven't done that; we put ourselves in a hole."
"This week we came back, and I thought we handled a little better than we did against Iowa, because we had a three-point deficit with (7:40) left and just scored. But we can't put ourselves in this position to not be able to come out with our hair on fire to start a game, and to just come out and start games slowly like that. Really, I thought offensively, it was a really nice 14-play drive to start the game, and I would have liked to end with a touchdown, but we didn't start the game very good on defense, and then we didn't respond very well on offense for a few series in a row."
Next, the Huskies will travel to Michigan State to face a defense that ranks No. 14 in the Big Ten in scoring this year, allowing an average of 23.6 points per game.
This article originally appeared on Huskies Wire: Slow starts have become a habit for Jedd Fisch, Washington football
