2024 Know Your Opponent: Washington Huskies

Each Monday this summer, we’re looking at Northwestern football’s opponents for the upcoming 2024 season. This week, we look at Washington, the Wildcats’ opponent in week four. The Huskies had a tremendous season in 2024, but a lot has changed in Seattle in one offseason. Northwestern will head to the West Coast this year on September 21 for its first matchup with Washington as a conference rival.

The Basics

Returning Production: 36% overall (19% offense, 52% defense); 130th in FBS

Record: 14-1 (9-0 PAC-12); lost in the National Championship

Head Coach: Jedd Fisch (first season)

The Stats

2024 SP+ Overall: 35th

2024 SP+ Offense: 28th

2024 SP+ Defense: 46th

2024 SP+ Special Teams: 47th

2023 Capsule

The Huskies drew a lot of eyes in 2023 in their last season in the PAC-12, marching all the way to the National Championship game. Their high-flying offensive attack led by quarterback Michael Penix Jr. (the number eight pick in the NFL Draft to the Atlanta Falcons), was unstoppable at times, especially in conference play during which his team didn’t lose a game.

Washington beat an outstanding Oregon team twice, both times by just a field goal, to edge them out for the conference championship and a playoff spot. The Huskies also won important, tight contests down the stretch against Oregon State and Washington State — the latter match was a major scare for the heavy favorite. Washington wasn’t blowing teams out of the water every week, but it always did enough to get the job done.

Come playoff time, questions remained about whether the defense was good enough to support the high-powered offense. That offense, however, also hadn’t faced premier defenses playing in the PAC-12. Against Texas in the semis, none of that seemed to matter, as the Huskies won in a high-scoring affair by a score of 37-31. They met their match in the national championship though, losing 34-13 to a Michigan defense that was unlike anything they’d seen previously.

Following the season, head coach Kalen Deboer left Seattle to fill the vacant Alabama head coaching job, taking over for the one and only Nick Saban. Former Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch then replaced Deboer. The Huskies also lost Penix Jr. alongside an enormous group of high-level starters to the NFL. They have the 130th most returning production in the nation heading into 2024. All this is to say, Washington isn’t just playing in a new conference. There will be quite a lot of other newness in Seattle this coming season as well.

Offensive Overview

As is obvious from the above statistics about production retention, Washington lost a shockingly large number of players on offense after last season’s run to the title game. It feels like the equivalent of when a professional sports team trades all its draft picks to go for it, then fails and is left to pick up the pieces. Except this was less self-inflicted, of course.

Without Penix Jr., Fisch, and his staff will turn to transfer Will Rogers from Mississippi State—the school’s all-time leading passer and touchdown thrower. He was dynamite in his first three seasons with the Bulldogs, but then things got tough.

First, his head coach Mike Leach passed away in December 2022, right after Rogers’ third season with the program. Then, last season, Rogers injured his shoulder early on and was replaced by none other than now-Northwestern passer Mike Wright.

Now, Rogers has a chance to prove to the world that Washington isn’t just going to be a one-and-done program and fade into mediocrity. He’ll team up with transfer wideout Jeremiah Hunter, last year’s leading receiver at California, who Washington fans hope will help provide some of the production lost in the receiver room (Rome Odunze is another big departure in addition to Penix Jr.). Things look bleak from a comparative standpoint on the offensive side of the ball, but there’s certainly still talent in the building.

Defensive Overview

Cornerback Ephesians Prysock followed Fisch from Arizona to Seattle this offseason. An honorable mention for the All-Pac-12 team last season, Prysock is a really good corner going against the outbound stream of traffic.

Additionally, Steve Belichick, the former New England Patriots linebackers coach, was hired as Washington’s new defensive coordinator. Belichick worked under a pretty high-level defensive mind in Bill Belichick for a long time in New England and the hope is that his experience serves him well as he runs the defense under Fisch.

Washington also has more returners from last year on defense. Linebackers Carson Bruener and Alphonzo Tuputala are back, part of the 52% returning production on the defensive side of the ball. The problem is, the defense was never the strength of this team, and it still likely won’t be. They rank 46th in SP+, still lagging behind a reworked, vastly weakened offense.

The bottom line is, if Washington somehow manages to not regress a whole lot next season, it will likely be because the offense overperformed. The Huskies just need the defense to be serviceable and steady.