It felt as though Washington was playing with a viewfinder, while Minnesota's defenders were hunting with night vision Saturday night in the Huskies' 27-24 loss to open Big Ten play.
UW allowed seven sacks on Saturday night in its 27-24 loss to the Golden Gophers, the most the program has surrendered since Jedd Fisch's first season in 2024.
The pressure began slow and steady with a sack in the first quarter and another in the second before the team went into halftime with a 21-10 lead. Then that number doubled in the third quarter as third-year quarterback Demond Williams Jr. tried to weave UW back in the game, and despite a pair of fourth-quarter scores, it never came to fruition.
Three more sacks in the fourth quarter pushed the final total to seven,
the most Fisch's offensive line has given up since UW allowed 10 at Oregon in 2024, a 49-21 loss at Autzen Stadium with a patchwork unit.
Fisch is once again searching for answers up front to protect Williams Jr. and to find a solution for what proved to be tied for the worst rushing output in his brief two-plus-year tenure on Montlake.
"Thats not on the OL. Thats on us. That's on me as a play caller."
— Dave “Softy” Mahler (@Softykjr) September 27, 2026
Jedd Fisch with us now on the 7 sacks allowed by UW
"They brought a lot of pressure," Fisch said after the loss. "They brought a lot of safeties. They brought secondary pressure. They brought their linebackers. Their linebackers had a pretty good amount of run-throughs. Physically, there was a time that we tried to pick some stuff up with our backs, and we cut one time, and they got back up and made a challenging play.
"That was the second interception; (it) was off of kind of a tough protection with the way they were blitzing. I thought they do a nice job with their disguise, mixing cover two and two-man, cover three, and the way they play their three. They carry the verticals, so that makes it a little more challenging because it's pretty sticky coverage. And they're good players, and they have a good scheme. They have a good team. They're always eight or nine wins every year, and they've been in this conference a very long time. P.J. (Fleck) does a great job."
The Huskies managed just 40 yards rushing in their three-point loss to the Gophers, the lowest total since hitting the same yardage mark on the ground in a 24-7 loss at Michigan in 2025. Prior to that, UW rushed for 43 yards at Oregon in 2024 and 63 yards in a 24-6 loss to then-No. 1 Ohio State, both of which brought a talent level that exceeds what Fleck and Minnesota did.
With veteran transfer Jayden Limar, second-year backup Quaid Carr, and third-year Jordan Washington all out, and third-year reserve Julian McMahan also out for the season after suffering an injury at practice this week, there aren't many options readily available for Fisch and the Huskies to solve that problem.
"That's not on the offensive line. That's on us. That's on me as a play caller," Fisch told sideline reporter Dave Mahler after the game.
As noted on 93.3 KJR's postgame show, UW managed just five yards on the ground by running backs in the 27-24 defeat Saturday night. As the lack of a run game mounted, it allowed Minnesota, already leading 24-10 at the end of the third quarter, to tee off on Williams Jr. and finish with three more sacks in the fourth quarter to complete Fleck's Pacific Northwest hunting trip with a victory.
Since the Huskies can't sign a transfer running back as Fisch would've done in the NFL off the waiver wire, the third-year coach must find answers quickly as the team hits the road this coming Saturday at USC, fresh off a 41-27 loss to Oregon at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
This article originally appeared on Huskies Wire: Jedd Fisch Takes Blame For Washington's OL Struggles Against Minnesota
