January 9, 2026 • 39 mins
In the first hour, Dave Softy Mahler and Dick Fain discuss last night’s news that Demond Williams is returning to the Huskies, welcome on UW Head Coach Jedd Fisch to speak on the entire situation from start to finish, plus his program, then react to his comments.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Where we got this football?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
That's part of our relentless coverage of the NFL. It's
a Football Friday sponsored by Tito's Handmade Vodka, proud sponsor
of the Seahawks, Distilledn't modeled by Fifth Generation Ain't, Boston, Texas.
Forty percent alcohol nmallume save responsibly.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
This crowd is going nuts.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Football Friday is on with Saftie and Dick on Sports
Radio ninety three point three.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
kJ R FM. All right, here we go, and I'm busy.
Football Friday.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Football Friday sponsored by Tito's Handmade Vodka, proud sponsor of
the Seahawks, distilled and bottled by Fifth Generation Incorporated, Austin, Texas.
Forty percent alcohol by volume, saver responsibly.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I'll tell you what, after what we've all been.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Through the last couple of days, I think we could
all use a big bottle of Tito's here in the studio.
Man Jedfish is going to join us, by the way
in about twelve minutes from now. We'll kind of adjust
the clock a little bit here and get the coach
you on the AAR around three point fifteen. First public
comments from him since this demand Williams Saga unfolded starting
on Tuesday and then hopefully ending for now last night
(01:11):
when he announced on Instagram he was going to return
to Washington and just one of the more just wacky, amazing,
unbelievable interesting stories that I think any of us have
really ever been a part of Dick in Seattle. I mean,
you know, a fractured fan base over at you Dub.
We ran a poll last night into this morning on
social media asking fans if they wanted demand Williams to
(01:33):
come back, and seven thousand votes in seventy percent say no.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Right, so we'll see.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I mean, this is going to be a very now,
very interesting offseason for a lot of reasons for You Dub.
But Jed Fish is going to join us at three fifteen,
and I just frankly think there's a lot of questions
that we need to simply put just ask directly.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
You know, what was his reaction when he went into portal?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Were there any conversations with him before he decided to
enter the portal?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And uh, why did he take him back?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
It's the guy that you know was announcing he was
going into the portal with a no contact designation, which frankly,
it makes it seem pretty obvious. He knew where he
was going. He was about to walk out on the
football team. Why would Jed Fish give this guy a
second shot? For God's sake? So what does he say
to the fan base that's frankly pissed off about the
whole situation, And.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
What would he say to the fan base who believes, well,
the only reason Demand is coming back is because he
can only play at the University of Washington because all
of a sudden it got shut down elsewhere, and so
now he has to come back to the University of Washington.
And you and why would you want a player in
those circumstances.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, Well, and then you know, I was on What's
Serious Today and the guy that I was talking with
I forgot his name, I apologize, brought up a great
point about this whole thing. And I don't know how
much this kind of factored into play, but you know,
the idea was that, hey, Deman only had to come
back because he went out there and realized that, you know,
schools were not willing to deal with the heat, they
were not willing to deal with the financial implications of
(02:58):
bringing him to their universe. So he had no choice.
But to come back and play for you Dub. But
I wonder if you Dub also had no choice either.
They signed the guy to a contract last Friday, so
they'd have to pay, and he hadn't violated the deal yet.
All he did is go on Instagram and say he
wanted to leave. I mean, was was you Dub bound
to have no choice but to bring this guy back
as well after what happened on Friday night? So it
(03:22):
is really going to be There's not many topics that
survive over a nine month period. This is gonna be
one of them. And it's going to go on and
on and on because every Husky fan, every football fan
across the country has a take on this.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
And I called our buddy r J Chopp. You know Rjay.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
He's in Dallas doing a morning show, but he's a
big Tennessee fan, right, So I asked him and said, hey,
if Nico put his name in the portal, which he
did and the next day decided I want to come
back to Knoxville, what would the reaction have been?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
He said, people would have crushed him. They would have
hated it.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
There's no way Tennessee fans would have liked to have
Nico back. Now, part of it is because they thought
it was way overpaid. But when he when a guy
quits on a football team, even shows any inkling that
he no longer wants to be in that locker room,
for some people, especially some old school people, Dick, that's
a major problem.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
It certainly is. And you talk about a nine month
shelf life of a story. Really in sports these days,
the only stories that have that type of shelf life's
involved quarterbacks. And we've because it's that important a position
to us, and we had a nine month shelf life. Hell,
we've had a twelve almost a twelve month shelf life
with Sam Darnell. Since the moment he was signed by
(04:32):
the Seattle Seahawks, he has been topic number one for Seattle.
How's he going to play? How's he going to play?
Now he's playing?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Is he good? Is he not good?
Speaker 4 (04:40):
How's he going to play in the playoffs? And now
we've transitioned to the Demond Williams story, which will be
another nine months.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, no, no doubt.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
And look, I mean obviously everything's raw, there's no question
about it. You know, obviously it's got to happen now
because the portal is going to close in February, and
there obviously as a calendar here that people have to
bye bye. But God, am I happy this happened now
versus later in the year as we get closer to
the year. I mean, you've got nine months to do
damage control. And it's not just damage control with the
(05:09):
fan base. I mean I almost think the damage control
inside that locker room, the damage control on campus with
the soccer team, for example. Who I'm hearing is hot
about what happened on Friday night, and I don't blame
him at all or Tuesday night. Sorry, I don't blame
him whatsoever for being hot about it, right, I mean
for a lot of people, including you, Jackson, that was
one of the things that really kind of just ticked
(05:30):
you off the most about this entire story, to be
that tone deaf about that situation. So he's got a
lot of fence mending to do behind the scenes at
at Washington. And I don't know how this is going
to go because I don't have any references.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I don't even know what story.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
That we could even call a comp with.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
This thing, and it's so new in college football.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
I can't think of one. But you know, it'll be
interesting to see does does this caush it right? Will
this be the one and only time? Yeah, because every
player out there that's thinking about this now we'll see
how it ended for Demon Williams. And it did not
end well.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Well, and it just it kind of shows you that
Demand did not do his homework on what the reaction
would have been on the other end, not just from
his own fan base, but also from schools across the country. Right,
And maybe if he had better advice, Maybe if he
had done more homework on the matter, he would have
realized that, well, you know what, and I'm not even
talking about just Demand been talking about the team he
(06:28):
was going to.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Go to if it was LSU.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Did LSU do their homework on this whole thing, because
it looks like they didn't. Because if they said no,
if they decided in the end to pull the plug
on this and said we can't go down that road,
then I mean you got to look at them and go,
my god, you created this situation and you're partially responsible
for Let's get to Jetfish. I'll join us next on
ninety three three KJRFM.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Now back to Football FRIDAYE sponsored by Tito's and made
vodka on your home for the NFL Sports Radio ninety
three point three.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
All right, boys and girls, back here on a Friday afternoon,
right here on ninety three to three, kJ ARFM Safty,
Dick Jackson with you until seven o'clock tonight.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
What do you say we head over to Mott Lake?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Joining us right now on the radio show, the head
coach of the Dogs, Jed Fish Jed Good, afternoon.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
How are you.
Speaker 5 (07:25):
Hell? U's offtie? How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I'm good.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I apologize for the phone call here. I know it's
been a quiet, relaxing couple days for you guys over
there at you dub so. I apologize for the for
the interruption, but why don't we just start their coach,
It's been a crazy few days, I know for everybody there,
crazy for us as fans here on the air, obviously,
How would you characterize the last forty eight seventy two
(07:49):
hours that you've been through?
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Yeah, you know, it's been a it's been a really
interesting learning experience the last really, I guess since January second,
and probably before that when the portal opened, but even
really since our season ended, trying to retain a team,
(08:12):
dealing with a lot of contract stuff that I've never
dealt with before at this level. There's been a ton
of communication with agents recently, and it's been a wild
month or whatever it's been, I guess from December thirteenth on,
and then it kind of culminated this week with a
very interesting week of learning.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Well, a week ago, we were all excited. We saw
that DeMont Williams signed his deal to come back. Husky
Nation was fired up, and then you know, kind of
all hell broke lose. Can you shed some light, Coach
on what happened between that day that Demon signed as
ANIL deal with you guys in the day he was
saying he was leaving less than a week later.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Yeah, you know, I think I can. I'd say, well,
the good part is the you know, the excitement and
the energy of a week ago. You know, we're a
week later and I'm really all we've done is improved
the team since then, and with Demand's return back, the
quality of the team and the quality of the players
(09:19):
is just continuing to improve. You know, they're obviously what
was the situation where, you know a few days back
that we were dealing with a discussion whether or not
the mom was going to return here or choose to
try to go elsewhere. Initially, obviously he chose to return here.
(09:41):
It was very excited about it. And then you know
posted that he was, you know, potentially going to try
to leave. And then over the last forty eight to
seventy two hours after that, after a lot of conversations
and a lot of communication and education and understanding the
new wave of college football, we all came to a
(10:05):
really good agreement where the best thing for for Demand,
the best thing for Washington, and the best thing for
all of college football was for Demand to be the
quarterback here for his third season in a row.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, well, Jeded Fish is with us.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
So, Jed, were you aware going into Tuesday night that
he was going to announce that he planned to enter
the transfer portal?
Speaker 5 (10:33):
No, No, that was no, There was no part of
that that I was expecting. We had some great conversations
when the season came to an end in the new
age of college football, and a third of the team,
a third of teams, not our team, but a third
of teams have been entering into the portal. I think
(10:54):
there's thousands and thousands of guys that have gone on.
You have conversations with every member of your team, and
you talk to them about the future, and you talked
about why being here is so important and why we
believe we built such an incredible foundation. So you have
those conversations up through that final day where they click
on you know, their their DOCU sign or their agent
(11:16):
approves their final deal. And when that happened, the traditional
you've now gotten to a point where you move on
to the next player or you bring in the next
member of the portal. You know, we brought in about
ten players since the season ended to join the team.
Uh So, Yeah, I was surprised about what occurred on
I believe it was Tuesday, but also encouraged with all
(11:41):
of the conversations that we had between Tuesday and last
night to put everybody you know, at ease and to
really talk about the future and how we were going
to really set Washington up for what hopefully will be
a great run this season.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Well, Jeed fish with us, and Jed surprising for me,
not from your perspective, but from Demand's perspective that he
would not have even made you aware that that post
was going out on Tuesday night. Do you do you
believe do you have reason to believe there was tampering
with demand from another university between Friday and Tuesday.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Oh, I don't know, and I really don't want to,
you know, get into that, the tampering or the discussions
of the communication. I know there's everybody wants to be
involved in those, and I kind of tend not to
want to be involved in those. I prefer much more
to be involved in talking about you know, what a
(12:40):
what a good football team I think we're going to have.
I think I want to get involved in being able
to help and educate our kids on you know, the
decisions they make, the consequences that we have, and then
you know how to be able to overcome some consequences
and also continue to become great communicators. And really, my
(13:01):
job as a college football coach is to educate eighteen
to twenty two year olds and twenty three year olds.
And I've learned a ton over the last seventy two
ninety six hours. I've also learned a ton over the month,
And to be honest with you, I've learned a ton
over the year, and I'm looking forward to sharing and
being able to help our kids grow and be a
(13:23):
better football team. Have a more trusting relationships with all
of us, have an incredible bond as a program, and
see what type of team we can put out there
in August. But we got eight months of work to
be able to get to where we want to be.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Coach, I'm sure you reached out to him right away
after being stunned by that announcement. What was his reasoning
that he gave you on that Tuesday that he wanted
to leave.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Yeah, I think the conversations that we had, I feel
like those are really important that we say that's saved
between us. I think as most kids in this new
era of football, you know, they're learning, they're they're trying
to understand, They're trying to figure out what does this
(14:12):
all look like? What is what is it that I
signed up for? What is it that we're living in
right now? You start hearing about the craziness of so
many different places, so many different kids, And you know,
I think for us, he and I had a conversation
about what we both thought was best, and then it
(14:36):
took the forty eight you know, hours or so to
really land where we felt the plane should be landed.
And I think over those forty hours, we both agreed
that the plane should be landed at SeaTac and we
should be able to really learn, be able to educate
(14:57):
the rest of our team about what happened, U about
to understand the value of time and timing, and then
also be able to talk through how we can really
make this a stronger team because of what occurred.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yeah, well, Jeed Fish is with us on the radio show,
and Jed, look, you're I know, keenly aware of the
reaction to this by the Husky fan base. And I've
been covering this thing for over thirty years and I've
never seen the fan base fractured like this.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
We ran a poll on social media.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Seven thousand people voted seventy percent to thirty percent against
wanting him to come back. For the fans out there
that don't trust him on Williams and don't want him
representing your doub anymore, what do you say to those fans?
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Yeah, you know, I saw at you saw your posts.
When you said, in thirty two years, you've never seen this,
I think it's because in thirty two years, we've never
had this in college football. Right, this is a completely
new world. This is the very first year in all
of college football that there's been revenue share agreements between
(16:07):
a university and between student athletes. This is the very
first year that, after all of these years where the
kids really got a scholarship, are now talking about sharing
in twenty plus million dollars through the television and multimedia
rights marketing deals that have been going on. So it
(16:29):
is brand new, and I think our fans, our coaches,
our families are all learning about the newness of college football.
And I think we really are working to learn about
how close it's becoming to pro football. And I'm not
going to compare it to you know, when there's a
player that misses a mini camp, or a player that
(16:52):
then shows up for their first veteran you know camp
and then everything is all well and good, or a
player that wants to hold out and then comes back,
or whatever it might be. I think we're just learning
college football is unique. It's new in twenty twenty six,
and all of us are learning how to navigate it
the best way possible.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Do you have any, though, Jed specific message to the
fans that are turned off by this?
Speaker 5 (17:20):
Yeah, I mean my specific message would be this, give
us eight months. The first game is not until September.
We are going to work extremely hard as a football
team to continue to be a part of this community
and to reach out and to be in the forefront
(17:44):
and to show the type of guys that we have
brought in here and that we will continue to bring
in here. We have nine months. We're not playing our
first game next Saturday. As a matter of fact, you know,
we're going to be at the team rooting for the
Seahawks next weekend. And as that continues on, I think
our fans will beginning to see what went on in
(18:04):
all of college football this year. This was certainly the
first time we saw a head coach leave a CFT
team and go to another team during the season. This
is the first time that we've seen many many things
that have occurred in college football. These are a lot
of firsts, and I hope that our fans understand they're
fans of the University of Washington, They're fans of you know,
(18:27):
this institution, the greatest setting in college football, the greatest
you know what I believe is one of the greatest
programs in college football. It's why I'm here, It's why
I wanted to stay here, regardless of rumor regardless of
what people thought. I love the fact that I get
the coach at the University of Washington, and I hope
that our fans recognize and believe in what we're trying
(18:49):
to get done here.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Coach, can you shed some light on the emotions that
the team has gone through the last week and how
worried are you about team chemistry? How much of a
struggle do you think? I think it will be for
Demand to assimilate back with his teammates.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
I think that's really important for the team to to
figure out that themselves. This isn't something that has gone
on for weeks or months. This isn't something that has
you know, been a you know, a contractual holdout that
we're you know concerned in this period of time where,
(19:29):
oh my god, we've been away from the team for
so long. I mean, this has been a couple of
days and now when he returns, the teammate and Demand,
I'm sure we'll have numerous conversations. It's important that we
all recognize how we can learn from this. Our team
is really full of character an integrity. We really believe
(19:50):
in doing the right thing. We're also, as me as
the head coach, our assistant coaches are players. We're all learning,
and we're all trying to get better and better and better,
and and it's my hope that I can be better
in twenty six than I wasn't twenty five. It's my
hope that our whole team feels the same.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Way Jetfish as with us on the radio show and Jed.
There's a thought I think that some people in the media,
some fans have that Demand came back because he had
to that the temperature, the financials on a team that
would have taken him were just too much to handle,
and he really had no choice but to return to Washington.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
What do you say to people that have that belief?
Speaker 5 (20:29):
What I would say is every conversation that I had
with Demand regarding his return was one in which that
he was excited to lead this team. It was one
in which that he was excited to be able to compete,
to be in the CFP. As he was seeing the
additions of our team and the amount of players that
(20:51):
were returning, which were really proud of. I think he
was really exciting about and is really excited about surrounding
himself with such talent and the you know, whatever perception
is out there. I believe the most important thing is
what they believe in the locker room, and I think
I'm going to leave it up to the players to
(21:12):
really work together to what would be building a championship
culture and championship season.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Well, demon speak to the fan base through the media
and if so, when.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
I'm sure at some point in time, demand is the
starting quarterback, and you know, your starting quarterback has always
been put in front of the media and has always
been somebody that has represented our program. And he has
done that with class over the twenty four months he's
(21:49):
been here. We're right now currently dealing with a situation
where he's nineteen and I want de Mond to continue
to learn. Obviously, three you saw on his post how
apologetic he was in terms of the timing of the post.
I spoke with coach Van Bike myself today. I apologized
(22:14):
on behalf of Washington Football. In the end, I'm the
forty nine year old, I'm the head coach. I'm responsible
for a program. I have reached out to both me
as mom and dad, and I want to make sure
that they understand that one had nothing to do with
the other. And while the timing we all wish was different.
(22:38):
I can promise you from my conversations at Demand there
was zero intent at all to take anything away from
that service.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Well, Jed fishes with us, and Jed you mentioned a
couple of times now that your conversations with Demand over
I think it's like a forty eight hour period right
from Tuesday night until yesterday.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Led you to believe that he was bought in, that
he wants to be here.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
And I mean, look, we're not privy to those conversations obviously,
so we're almost like relying on you to trust that
you're hearing what you need to hear, that this guy
is loyal now to this program, that this is not
going to be a problem, either on the field or
off the field. Can you, maybe if you can in detail,
share a thought or two on what you heard from
(23:21):
Demon Williams that makes you feel comfortable bringing him back.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
One of the most important thing that I had to
hear is that I want to come back and at
you know, at nineteen years old. I think that he
and I had a great conversation about speaking regards of
like how do we learn from this, how do we
get better? You know? One of the and I don't
want to get into the details of all of our conversations,
(23:49):
but one of the biggest parts of it was a
learning experience. And I think that as we saw that
Demon really believes that he wants to be He's an
outstanding academic student and wants to be a part of
the University of Washington that on that level, and on
the same token, he's coming off of a nine win
season and wants to be a part of the twelve
(24:10):
win season plus next year. So when he told me
he wants to come back, and he wants to lead
this football program, and he wants to do everything he
possibly can to help us win every game we're going
to compete in. I have to believe that I've known
demand for four and a half years.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Well, you said, Jed a couple of times that you've
learned a couple of things in just the last couple
of days.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
What have you learned?
Speaker 5 (24:37):
I learned that it's my responsibility as the head coach
of you know, close to one hundred and five eighteen
to twenty three year olds, that the communication of you know,
the decision to commit, the decision to be a part
(24:57):
of the program, the communication factor of explaining to these
kids that what they're going to hear and what they're
going to see might not always be true. Helping these
guys understand that it's really important to, you know, to
make sure that you do what you say. I've talked
(25:20):
to these guys, and I've learned that I need to
do a better job and will continue to do a
better job of continuing to educate the team on twenty
twenty six college football in comparison to what twenty twenty
four to five three was. And really what I want
to do is I want to make sure that these
kids all know that I love them, that I believe
(25:42):
in our team, and that what has gone on over
the course of a week or a month or two months,
these kids have been you know, punctioned in the mouth
a few times with a lot of rumors of a
lot of different things that have you know, and I
want to make sure that our guys know that we're
all committed for two thousand.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
Coach, you used the term that you got to the
point where you agreed to land the plane back at
SeaTac tell us a little bit more about the tenor
of that conversation. Was it more of you convincing him
that that was the best place for him, were demand
kind of realizing that, oh man, I screwed up here.
Speaker 5 (26:18):
I think that once again, guys, you know, I want
to make sure that I respect the confidentiality and the
privacy of the relationship, but I would just tell you
that we had a lot of conversations for weeks. I've
had conversations with numerous players on our football team for
(26:39):
weeks about the program and where they want to be
and what do they want to be a part of.
And as we continue to talk about everything that we
have going on here and how special of a program
we believe, and how we believe so much in our
fan base and in our alumni support, how we believe
that we can be one of the top programs in
(27:00):
many areas, not just football, but we can also you know,
lead the country at some point in time here in
an I l and lead the country sometime here and
getting our community back behind us and lead the country
and academics, and we believe in what we're doing. So
our conversations were what can we do together to help
both of us and our entire football team achieve our dreams?
(27:24):
And I think we felt at the end that the
same thing we felt the week before, which was what
he sed when he signed his contract, which was, you know,
let's go do this thing.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, well, Jed, before you go, I mean, I'm just
assuming this is gonna be a pretty busy offseason for you,
my friend. I mean, you've got a lot of stuff
going on internally now that you never maybe thought you
would have had to have dealt with, with some fence
mending with the guys potentially the soccer team, the fans,
the media. Then you've got to figure out how to
knock off some of these premier clubs, right, I mean,
just go back to what you saw from Demand Williams
(27:58):
a year ago against Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon teams like that.
Winning cures a lot of this man. You know that
as well as anybody. You're not naive. You know that
that this team starts getting some big wins and people
will forgive and forget very fast. So tell us about
what you think you can get done this offseason to
(28:18):
see some better numbers and some victories against the top
teams on your schedule.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Yeah, I appreciate the football player said, man, you want
to get another segment, second ball, let's go.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Man.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
You know, I feel like we're at a spot. You know,
we made a six game jump to six wins to
nine wins. You know, as I mentioned before, we were
in Arizona, we went from one win to five win
to ten wins. You know, we're going into our year three.
We've got the same offensive system. We've got the same
defensive system. I love the we finished in the top
twenty in scoring offense and top twenty in scoring defense.
(28:56):
We we did a lot of great things in a
lot of games, and then we had a you know,
games where we've noticed that you look at this, you know,
the Michigan game, the Ohio State game, the Oregon game,
and even the Wisconsin game. You can see there's certain
games in this conference that are going to be you know,
low scoring games. I think we saw the Big Ten
(29:16):
championship game was thirteen to ten. We saw the you know,
there's been games that the the Miami Ohio State game
or whatever it was, I forget what it was a
week ago. So when Ohio State lost you know whoever,
It's like these games that are being played are a
little bit more low scoring in this conference. And what
(29:37):
we've got to do is we've got to win that
low scoring game. We can't just win the high scoring game.
So we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about
that fourth quarter of football. We're going to really invest
in the physicality and the toughness of our program. Our
offseat and training is going to be one in which
we're gonna ratchet it up one more notch. We believe
that the fourth quarter of games. We've had some great
(29:59):
fourth quarters, but in the in our four losses, we
lost the fourth quarter all though those were one score
games in the fourth nineteen to fourteen, fourteen to six,
seven all fourteen to seven, and then ten all and
those four games, we got to find a way to
win the final ten minutes, and that will be our
focus the whole offseason.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
I got a football question to wrap things up to coach.
When you see these teams playing last night and tonight,
what's the main difference you see between your roster and
what those look like right now?
Speaker 5 (30:30):
I think the most important thing I see is that
we're very close. The second thing that I see is
that you gotta be You gotta win in the trenches,
and when you come out to our first print practice,
you'll see how much bigger we even got from last
year to this year, and the jump that we made
from year two to year three. All of these teams
that are playing right now, you could see the violence
(30:54):
and the physicality that they play with the offensive line,
the defensive line, the linebackers, and that's what I'm most
proud of.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Yeah, Jed, before you go, I got one more for you,
all right, And I know that you're like, you got
to be kidding me, man, I thought.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
We were done.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
I thought I was off the hook here we're talking football.
But let me wrap it up where we started with
Demon Williams because you, yeah, exactly. You mentioned that he
will talk eventually. We all hope that happens sooner than later.
I mean, I'd like him to be prepared for that obviously.
So I'm certain that's what's happening behind the scenes. But
(31:26):
do you feel like there's a little something extra that
he needs to do to earn the trust back of
not just this fan base but also the university. There's
been some ideas kicked around donating money to the hospital
and honor amiya doing some maybe longer form in person
interviews with people Roy Firestone style, if you will, to
(31:47):
get all these questions that need to be asked, asked
so we can all move on. Do you think he's
got to maybe do a little bit of extra work
here over this offseason to earn that trust back.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
Here that I would say to that it's a situation
where somebody is telling him to do those things, then
I don't I don't think that anybody would be happy.
I think this is whatever Demand really believes that he
can do, whether it be I mean you mentioned a
donation or whatever it might be. I don't want to
(32:20):
tell somebody what to do. What I want Demand to
do is I want to mond to to continue to grow,
to mature, and to be comfortable. He is, you know,
he is someone that is learning how to be a pro.
And I think that over time he's going to continue
to learn and get better and appreciate so many things.
(32:40):
And I really hope that over these six months that
aren't fan base and you and the media and everybody
involved understand that really what we're talking about is, for
a two days fan we had a player that decided to,
you know, make a decision to kind of learn about
the college landscape in a manner that I don't think
(33:02):
he ever felt he would have had to learn and
now we all have learned a ton about college football,
and I hope we're all better because of what we learned.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, all right, listen, thanks for doing this.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Let's do it again very soon, and next time you
come on, I promise it'll be ninety eight percent football talk.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
How's that?
Speaker 5 (33:20):
I will accept ninety eight percent football talk anytime?
Speaker 3 (33:24):
All right, Jed, thanks for doing though, appreciate it, all right,
jetfish with us. We're gonna break come back, respond to that.
Millan's got to take on that. I know as well.
Here he's going to hop on at four o'clock.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I don't know. I think we might just need to
keep the segment open.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Guys, next segment, I we'll figure something else out with
that other guest we had planned next on ninety three
three KJRFM, now back to Football.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Friday, sponsored by Tito's Handmade Vodka on your home for
the NFL Sports Radio ninety.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Three point three KJRFL.
Speaker 5 (33:56):
We're right now currently dealing with a situation where nineteen
and I want demon to continue to learn. Obviously, he
saw on his post how apologetic he was in terms
of the timing of the post.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Yeah, it was interesting to hear Jetfish say he apologized
directly to Nicole Vandyke women's soccer coach over there. That
was obviously a major thing on Tuesday night when the
story came out. And if you missed Jetfish, by the way,
we're going to see you again coming up at six
pm tonight. By the way, you're gonna want to hear
the entire interview with the head coach of the Dogs.
But Sofia Dick Jackson with you. A Humilan will join
(34:34):
us a four. Kevin Harlan's coming up at five today.
But he mentioned the word to educate the team a
couple of times on a lot of stuff, and I
think what he meant by that, if I'm just reading
the tea leaves, is educating them on not only what
went down with Demon and how this whole thing happened.
For example, I'll just kind of throw this out there,
if Demon was influenced by outside sources, not to talking
(35:00):
about his agent, Doug Hendrickson, because his agent's already dropped him,
by the way, if he was influenced by his father,
if he was influenced by somebody else, this landers character
that Pete Damil's been kicking around. I want Jetfish to
let the guys know that that this is what happened.
We got a nineteen year old quarterback, a nineteen year
old kid. I would go directly to some of the
older guys on the team, including the Hatchet brothers by
(35:22):
the way, and talk to them as twenty two to
twenty three year olds and say, hey, this kid was
influenced by these guys and he made a stupid decision
and he made the wrong call. And then I think
he's also educating the guys on hey, when you sign
an NIL deal and a revenue share deal, this is
what happens, right. I mean, you saw Dellinger's report that
came out the other day that whoever signed Demon Williams
(35:42):
would have had to have paid Washington the value of
the contract, which we've heard is anywhere between four and
five million dollars, and they would have had that amount
of money deducted from their revenue share pool, and then
they would have had to have gone out and spent
more money on nil what they're collective to get him.
So I'm wondering, Dick, if Washington just showed the country
(36:06):
you sign he.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Got to an NIO deal. He's done.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
He's done because the price that you pay financially on
the other side is not going to be worth it.
So I think he wants his kids to know that.
I think he wants his kids to know why Deman
did what he did and why he was influenced to
do it.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
Yeah, it's interesting because we felt like this was going
to be an earth shattering story when we thought that
Demon was going to leave and that it would change
the rules in college football. Well, now that he's coming back,
it might just enforce the rules in college football, and
it may be an earth shattering situation. But I mean,
as much as we would all love for Jed to
(36:43):
just talk about everything in detail of what he said
with Demon Williams, he can't do that. I mean, he's
got to be protective of his kid. I mean I
thought he was protective and thought he was fatherly of him.
And honestly, wouldn't you like to be a player that
plays for a coach like that that knows when you
screw up this badly? Yeah, he's still gonna have your back.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Right Well, you know, look, I mean I'll be honest
with you. When we asked Jed about does demand need
to do anything extra behind the scenes we talked about.
I think it was your idea, Jackson, or somebody's idea
to make a donation to UDAB hospital and honor a
Mia Hammond, do some long form interviews and things like that.
I would have loved personally to have heard Jed say, yes,
(37:27):
I've got things that we're going to talk about. We're
going to work together, We're going to do some things here.
We're going to get demand's ideas, we're going to get
Demond's parents' ideas. Heck, we might even get the team's
ideas and do some stuff to get him back in
the good graces of the community and in the good
graces of the program. I mean, I'm telling you right now,
I know absolutely that he's got some fence mending to
(37:50):
do on campus behind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
There's no question about that.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
So from a personal perspective, Jackson, I would have loved
to have heard Jedfish say, yes, there are things that
we're going to do to try as much as we can.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
We're gonna make it genuine right.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
We don't want to just say do this, do this,
do this, but there are things we're gonna do to
try to get to that point.
Speaker 6 (38:08):
You're absolutely right. I couldn't agree with more with anything
you guys have said so far. The thing that I
took is that answer where he says, I don't want
it to be me telling him what to do. I
want to be his idea, right, And you connect that
with the earlier answer that we played kind of coming
in where he talked about Hell yeah, I spoke with
Van Dyk, I spoke with you know people, I spoke
with me as parents like I I I how about demand, right?
(38:32):
Like you know what like demand? You better be in
touch with that team. You better have these ideas because
that's how you gotta you make this ground.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
And those are what I would recommend to demand. Not
that he's listening right now, maybe it is. I'll just
tell you this that in this day and age a
college football the idea of media training, PR training things
like that, preparing players for interviews and all that. Don't
kid yourself, this is not all on Washington, Like they've
got a sports information staff over there.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Play now have their.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Own people, they have their own marketing people, they have
their own promotions people, they have their own lawyers. Demon's
camp and he's got a camp. Trust me better, Dan,
Well get him prepared. If he works with Darren Heidner,
who's a lawyer. He signed their Day, same guy that
represent Lucas when he went from Wisconsin to Michigan. I
really hope that his people, whoever they are. I'm not
(39:21):
even talking about you Dubbs people. I'm talking about his people,
get him prepared to answer those types of questions. And
that's going to be one of the first questions Jackson
jed Fish himself said he spoke to me as parents.
He said, he spoke to the cove and like, did
you talk to them? Did you reach out? And if
he's not prepared for those questions, that's going to be
on him, and that's going to be on his people
(39:44):
that are supposed to be protecting him and preparing him
for whenever that moment comes. So I hope it happens fast.
I hope it happens quick, Dick, and I really hope
he's ready for it. Man, we're going to break. Hugh
Millen is going to join us next on ninety three
to three KJARFM.
Where we got this football?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
That's part of our relentless coverage of the NFL. It's
a Football Friday sponsored by Tito's Handmade Vodka, proud sponsor
of the Seahawks, Distilledn't modeled by Fifth Generation Ain't, Boston, Texas.
Forty percent alcohol nmallume save responsibly.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
This crowd is going nuts.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Football Friday is on with Saftie and Dick on Sports
Radio ninety three point three.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
kJ R FM. All right, here we go, and I'm busy.
Football Friday.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Football Friday sponsored by Tito's Handmade Vodka, proud sponsor of
the Seahawks, distilled and bottled by Fifth Generation Incorporated, Austin, Texas.
Forty percent alcohol by volume, saver responsibly.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
I'll tell you what, after what we've all been.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Through the last couple of days, I think we could
all use a big bottle of Tito's here in the studio.
Man Jedfish is going to join us, by the way
in about twelve minutes from now. We'll kind of adjust
the clock a little bit here and get the coach
you on the AAR around three point fifteen. First public
comments from him since this demand Williams Saga unfolded starting
on Tuesday and then hopefully ending for now last night
(01:11):
when he announced on Instagram he was going to return
to Washington and just one of the more just wacky, amazing,
unbelievable interesting stories that I think any of us have
really ever been a part of Dick in Seattle. I mean,
you know, a fractured fan base over at you Dub.
We ran a poll last night into this morning on
social media asking fans if they wanted demand Williams to
(01:33):
come back, and seven thousand votes in seventy percent say no.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Right, so we'll see.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I mean, this is going to be a very now,
very interesting offseason for a lot of reasons for You Dub.
But Jed Fish is going to join us at three fifteen,
and I just frankly think there's a lot of questions
that we need to simply put just ask directly.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
You know, what was his reaction when he went into portal?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Were there any conversations with him before he decided to
enter the portal?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And uh, why did he take him back?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
It's the guy that you know was announcing he was
going into the portal with a no contact designation, which frankly,
it makes it seem pretty obvious. He knew where he
was going. He was about to walk out on the
football team. Why would Jed Fish give this guy a
second shot? For God's sake? So what does he say
to the fan base that's frankly pissed off about the
whole situation, And.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
What would he say to the fan base who believes, well,
the only reason Demand is coming back is because he
can only play at the University of Washington because all
of a sudden it got shut down elsewhere, and so
now he has to come back to the University of Washington.
And you and why would you want a player in
those circumstances.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, Well, and then you know, I was on What's
Serious Today and the guy that I was talking with
I forgot his name, I apologize, brought up a great
point about this whole thing. And I don't know how
much this kind of factored into play, but you know,
the idea was that, hey, Deman only had to come
back because he went out there and realized that, you know,
schools were not willing to deal with the heat, they
were not willing to deal with the financial implications of
(02:58):
bringing him to their universe. So he had no choice.
But to come back and play for you Dub. But
I wonder if you Dub also had no choice either.
They signed the guy to a contract last Friday, so
they'd have to pay, and he hadn't violated the deal yet.
All he did is go on Instagram and say he
wanted to leave. I mean, was was you Dub bound
to have no choice but to bring this guy back
as well after what happened on Friday night? So it
(03:22):
is really going to be There's not many topics that
survive over a nine month period. This is gonna be
one of them. And it's going to go on and
on and on because every Husky fan, every football fan
across the country has a take on this.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
And I called our buddy r J Chopp. You know Rjay.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
He's in Dallas doing a morning show, but he's a
big Tennessee fan, right, So I asked him and said, hey,
if Nico put his name in the portal, which he
did and the next day decided I want to come
back to Knoxville, what would the reaction have been?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
He said, people would have crushed him. They would have
hated it.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
There's no way Tennessee fans would have liked to have
Nico back. Now, part of it is because they thought
it was way overpaid. But when he when a guy
quits on a football team, even shows any inkling that
he no longer wants to be in that locker room,
for some people, especially some old school people, Dick, that's
a major problem.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
It certainly is. And you talk about a nine month
shelf life of a story. Really in sports these days,
the only stories that have that type of shelf life's
involved quarterbacks. And we've because it's that important a position
to us, and we had a nine month shelf life. Hell,
we've had a twelve almost a twelve month shelf life
with Sam Darnell. Since the moment he was signed by
(04:32):
the Seattle Seahawks, he has been topic number one for Seattle.
How's he going to play? How's he going to play?
Now he's playing?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Is he good? Is he not good?
Speaker 4 (04:40):
How's he going to play in the playoffs? And now
we've transitioned to the Demond Williams story, which will be
another nine months.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, no, no doubt.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
And look, I mean obviously everything's raw, there's no question
about it. You know, obviously it's got to happen now
because the portal is going to close in February, and
there obviously as a calendar here that people have to
bye bye. But God, am I happy this happened now
versus later in the year as we get closer to
the year. I mean, you've got nine months to do
damage control. And it's not just damage control with the
(05:09):
fan base. I mean I almost think the damage control
inside that locker room, the damage control on campus with
the soccer team, for example. Who I'm hearing is hot
about what happened on Friday night, and I don't blame
him at all or Tuesday night. Sorry, I don't blame
him whatsoever for being hot about it, right, I mean
for a lot of people, including you, Jackson, that was
one of the things that really kind of just ticked
(05:30):
you off the most about this entire story, to be
that tone deaf about that situation. So he's got a
lot of fence mending to do behind the scenes at
at Washington. And I don't know how this is going
to go because I don't have any references.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I don't even know what story.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
That we could even call a comp with.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
This thing, and it's so new in college football.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
I can't think of one. But you know, it'll be
interesting to see does does this caush it right? Will
this be the one and only time? Yeah, because every
player out there that's thinking about this now we'll see
how it ended for Demon Williams. And it did not
end well.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Well, and it just it kind of shows you that
Demand did not do his homework on what the reaction
would have been on the other end, not just from
his own fan base, but also from schools across the country. Right,
And maybe if he had better advice, Maybe if he
had done more homework on the matter, he would have
realized that, well, you know what, and I'm not even
talking about just Demand been talking about the team he
(06:28):
was going to.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Go to if it was LSU.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Did LSU do their homework on this whole thing, because
it looks like they didn't. Because if they said no,
if they decided in the end to pull the plug
on this and said we can't go down that road,
then I mean you got to look at them and go,
my god, you created this situation and you're partially responsible
for Let's get to Jetfish. I'll join us next on
ninety three three KJRFM.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Now back to Football FRIDAYE sponsored by Tito's and made
vodka on your home for the NFL Sports Radio ninety
three point three.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
All right, boys and girls, back here on a Friday afternoon,
right here on ninety three to three, kJ ARFM Safty,
Dick Jackson with you until seven o'clock tonight.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
What do you say we head over to Mott Lake?
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Joining us right now on the radio show, the head
coach of the Dogs, Jed Fish Jed Good, afternoon.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
How are you.
Speaker 5 (07:25):
Hell? U's offtie? How are you doing?
Speaker 1 (07:27):
I'm good.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I apologize for the phone call here. I know it's
been a quiet, relaxing couple days for you guys over
there at you dub so. I apologize for the for
the interruption, but why don't we just start their coach,
It's been a crazy few days, I know for everybody there,
crazy for us as fans here on the air, obviously,
How would you characterize the last forty eight seventy two
(07:49):
hours that you've been through?
Speaker 5 (07:52):
Yeah, you know, it's been a it's been a really
interesting learning experience the last really, I guess since January second,
and probably before that when the portal opened, but even
really since our season ended, trying to retain a team,
(08:12):
dealing with a lot of contract stuff that I've never
dealt with before at this level. There's been a ton
of communication with agents recently, and it's been a wild
month or whatever it's been, I guess from December thirteenth on,
and then it kind of culminated this week with a
very interesting week of learning.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Well, a week ago, we were all excited. We saw
that DeMont Williams signed his deal to come back. Husky
Nation was fired up, and then you know, kind of
all hell broke lose. Can you shed some light, Coach
on what happened between that day that Demon signed as
ANIL deal with you guys in the day he was
saying he was leaving less than a week later.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Yeah, you know, I think I can. I'd say, well,
the good part is the you know, the excitement and
the energy of a week ago. You know, we're a
week later and I'm really all we've done is improved
the team since then, and with Demand's return back, the
quality of the team and the quality of the players
(09:19):
is just continuing to improve. You know, they're obviously what
was the situation where, you know a few days back
that we were dealing with a discussion whether or not
the mom was going to return here or choose to
try to go elsewhere. Initially, obviously he chose to return here.
(09:41):
It was very excited about it. And then you know
posted that he was, you know, potentially going to try
to leave. And then over the last forty eight to
seventy two hours after that, after a lot of conversations
and a lot of communication and education and understanding the
new wave of college football, we all came to a
(10:05):
really good agreement where the best thing for for Demand,
the best thing for Washington, and the best thing for
all of college football was for Demand to be the
quarterback here for his third season in a row.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, well, Jeded Fish is with us.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
So, Jed, were you aware going into Tuesday night that
he was going to announce that he planned to enter
the transfer portal?
Speaker 5 (10:33):
No, No, that was no, There was no part of
that that I was expecting. We had some great conversations
when the season came to an end in the new
age of college football, and a third of the team,
a third of teams, not our team, but a third
of teams have been entering into the portal. I think
(10:54):
there's thousands and thousands of guys that have gone on.
You have conversations with every member of your team, and
you talk to them about the future, and you talked
about why being here is so important and why we
believe we built such an incredible foundation. So you have
those conversations up through that final day where they click
on you know, their their DOCU sign or their agent
(11:16):
approves their final deal. And when that happened, the traditional
you've now gotten to a point where you move on
to the next player or you bring in the next
member of the portal. You know, we brought in about
ten players since the season ended to join the team.
Uh So, Yeah, I was surprised about what occurred on
I believe it was Tuesday, but also encouraged with all
(11:41):
of the conversations that we had between Tuesday and last
night to put everybody you know, at ease and to
really talk about the future and how we were going
to really set Washington up for what hopefully will be
a great run this season.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Well, Jeed fish with us, and Jed surprising for me,
not from your perspective, but from Demand's perspective that he
would not have even made you aware that that post
was going out on Tuesday night. Do you do you
believe do you have reason to believe there was tampering
with demand from another university between Friday and Tuesday.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Oh, I don't know, and I really don't want to,
you know, get into that, the tampering or the discussions
of the communication. I know there's everybody wants to be
involved in those, and I kind of tend not to
want to be involved in those. I prefer much more
to be involved in talking about you know, what a
(12:40):
what a good football team I think we're going to have.
I think I want to get involved in being able
to help and educate our kids on you know, the
decisions they make, the consequences that we have, and then
you know how to be able to overcome some consequences
and also continue to become great communicators. And really, my
(13:01):
job as a college football coach is to educate eighteen
to twenty two year olds and twenty three year olds.
And I've learned a ton over the last seventy two
ninety six hours. I've also learned a ton over the month,
And to be honest with you, I've learned a ton
over the year, and I'm looking forward to sharing and
being able to help our kids grow and be a
(13:23):
better football team. Have a more trusting relationships with all
of us, have an incredible bond as a program, and
see what type of team we can put out there
in August. But we got eight months of work to
be able to get to where we want to be.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Coach, I'm sure you reached out to him right away
after being stunned by that announcement. What was his reasoning
that he gave you on that Tuesday that he wanted
to leave.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
Yeah, I think the conversations that we had, I feel
like those are really important that we say that's saved
between us. I think as most kids in this new
era of football, you know, they're learning, they're they're trying
to understand, They're trying to figure out what does this
(14:12):
all look like? What is what is it that I
signed up for? What is it that we're living in
right now? You start hearing about the craziness of so
many different places, so many different kids, And you know,
I think for us, he and I had a conversation
about what we both thought was best, and then it
(14:36):
took the forty eight you know, hours or so to
really land where we felt the plane should be landed.
And I think over those forty hours, we both agreed
that the plane should be landed at SeaTac and we
should be able to really learn, be able to educate
(14:57):
the rest of our team about what happened, U about
to understand the value of time and timing, and then
also be able to talk through how we can really
make this a stronger team because of what occurred.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Yeah, well, Jeed Fish is with us on the radio show,
and Jed, look, you're I know, keenly aware of the
reaction to this by the Husky fan base. And I've
been covering this thing for over thirty years and I've
never seen the fan base fractured like this.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
We ran a poll on social media.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Seven thousand people voted seventy percent to thirty percent against
wanting him to come back. For the fans out there
that don't trust him on Williams and don't want him
representing your doub anymore, what do you say to those fans?
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Yeah, you know, I saw at you saw your posts.
When you said, in thirty two years, you've never seen this,
I think it's because in thirty two years, we've never
had this in college football. Right, this is a completely
new world. This is the very first year in all
of college football that there's been revenue share agreements between
(16:07):
a university and between student athletes. This is the very
first year that, after all of these years where the
kids really got a scholarship, are now talking about sharing
in twenty plus million dollars through the television and multimedia
rights marketing deals that have been going on. So it
(16:29):
is brand new, and I think our fans, our coaches,
our families are all learning about the newness of college football.
And I think we really are working to learn about
how close it's becoming to pro football. And I'm not
going to compare it to you know, when there's a
player that misses a mini camp, or a player that
(16:52):
then shows up for their first veteran you know camp
and then everything is all well and good, or a
player that wants to hold out and then comes back,
or whatever it might be. I think we're just learning
college football is unique. It's new in twenty twenty six,
and all of us are learning how to navigate it
the best way possible.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Do you have any, though, Jed specific message to the
fans that are turned off by this?
Speaker 5 (17:20):
Yeah, I mean my specific message would be this, give
us eight months. The first game is not until September.
We are going to work extremely hard as a football
team to continue to be a part of this community
and to reach out and to be in the forefront
(17:44):
and to show the type of guys that we have
brought in here and that we will continue to bring
in here. We have nine months. We're not playing our
first game next Saturday. As a matter of fact, you know,
we're going to be at the team rooting for the
Seahawks next weekend. And as that continues on, I think
our fans will beginning to see what went on in
(18:04):
all of college football this year. This was certainly the
first time we saw a head coach leave a CFT
team and go to another team during the season. This
is the first time that we've seen many many things
that have occurred in college football. These are a lot
of firsts, and I hope that our fans understand they're
fans of the University of Washington, They're fans of you know,
(18:27):
this institution, the greatest setting in college football, the greatest
you know what I believe is one of the greatest
programs in college football. It's why I'm here, It's why
I wanted to stay here, regardless of rumor regardless of
what people thought. I love the fact that I get
the coach at the University of Washington, and I hope
that our fans recognize and believe in what we're trying
(18:49):
to get done here.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Coach, can you shed some light on the emotions that
the team has gone through the last week and how
worried are you about team chemistry? How much of a
struggle do you think? I think it will be for
Demand to assimilate back with his teammates.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
I think that's really important for the team to to
figure out that themselves. This isn't something that has gone
on for weeks or months. This isn't something that has
you know, been a you know, a contractual holdout that
we're you know concerned in this period of time where,
(19:29):
oh my god, we've been away from the team for
so long. I mean, this has been a couple of
days and now when he returns, the teammate and Demand,
I'm sure we'll have numerous conversations. It's important that we
all recognize how we can learn from this. Our team
is really full of character an integrity. We really believe
(19:50):
in doing the right thing. We're also, as me as
the head coach, our assistant coaches are players. We're all learning,
and we're all trying to get better and better and better,
and and it's my hope that I can be better
in twenty six than I wasn't twenty five. It's my
hope that our whole team feels the same.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Way Jetfish as with us on the radio show and Jed.
There's a thought I think that some people in the media,
some fans have that Demand came back because he had
to that the temperature, the financials on a team that
would have taken him were just too much to handle,
and he really had no choice but to return to Washington.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
What do you say to people that have that belief?
Speaker 5 (20:29):
What I would say is every conversation that I had
with Demand regarding his return was one in which that
he was excited to lead this team. It was one
in which that he was excited to be able to compete,
to be in the CFP. As he was seeing the
additions of our team and the amount of players that
(20:51):
were returning, which were really proud of. I think he
was really exciting about and is really excited about surrounding
himself with such talent and the you know, whatever perception
is out there. I believe the most important thing is
what they believe in the locker room, and I think
I'm going to leave it up to the players to
(21:12):
really work together to what would be building a championship
culture and championship season.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Well, demon speak to the fan base through the media
and if so, when.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
I'm sure at some point in time, demand is the
starting quarterback, and you know, your starting quarterback has always
been put in front of the media and has always
been somebody that has represented our program. And he has
done that with class over the twenty four months he's
(21:49):
been here. We're right now currently dealing with a situation
where he's nineteen and I want de Mond to continue
to learn. Obviously, three you saw on his post how
apologetic he was in terms of the timing of the post.
I spoke with coach Van Bike myself today. I apologized
(22:14):
on behalf of Washington Football. In the end, I'm the
forty nine year old, I'm the head coach. I'm responsible
for a program. I have reached out to both me
as mom and dad, and I want to make sure
that they understand that one had nothing to do with
the other. And while the timing we all wish was different.
(22:38):
I can promise you from my conversations at Demand there
was zero intent at all to take anything away from
that service.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Well, Jed fishes with us, and Jed you mentioned a
couple of times now that your conversations with Demand over
I think it's like a forty eight hour period right
from Tuesday night until yesterday.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Led you to believe that he was bought in, that
he wants to be here.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
And I mean, look, we're not privy to those conversations obviously,
so we're almost like relying on you to trust that
you're hearing what you need to hear, that this guy
is loyal now to this program, that this is not
going to be a problem, either on the field or
off the field. Can you, maybe if you can in detail,
share a thought or two on what you heard from
(23:21):
Demon Williams that makes you feel comfortable bringing him back.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
One of the most important thing that I had to
hear is that I want to come back and at
you know, at nineteen years old. I think that he
and I had a great conversation about speaking regards of
like how do we learn from this, how do we
get better? You know? One of the and I don't
want to get into the details of all of our conversations,
(23:49):
but one of the biggest parts of it was a
learning experience. And I think that as we saw that
Demon really believes that he wants to be He's an
outstanding academic student and wants to be a part of
the University of Washington that on that level, and on
the same token, he's coming off of a nine win
season and wants to be a part of the twelve
(24:10):
win season plus next year. So when he told me
he wants to come back, and he wants to lead
this football program, and he wants to do everything he
possibly can to help us win every game we're going
to compete in. I have to believe that I've known
demand for four and a half years.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Well, you said, Jed a couple of times that you've
learned a couple of things in just the last couple
of days.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
What have you learned?
Speaker 5 (24:37):
I learned that it's my responsibility as the head coach
of you know, close to one hundred and five eighteen
to twenty three year olds, that the communication of you know,
the decision to commit, the decision to be a part
(24:57):
of the program, the communication factor of explaining to these
kids that what they're going to hear and what they're
going to see might not always be true. Helping these
guys understand that it's really important to, you know, to
make sure that you do what you say. I've talked
(25:20):
to these guys, and I've learned that I need to
do a better job and will continue to do a
better job of continuing to educate the team on twenty
twenty six college football in comparison to what twenty twenty
four to five three was. And really what I want
to do is I want to make sure that these
kids all know that I love them, that I believe
(25:42):
in our team, and that what has gone on over
the course of a week or a month or two months,
these kids have been you know, punctioned in the mouth
a few times with a lot of rumors of a
lot of different things that have you know, and I
want to make sure that our guys know that we're
all committed for two thousand.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
Coach, you used the term that you got to the
point where you agreed to land the plane back at
SeaTac tell us a little bit more about the tenor
of that conversation. Was it more of you convincing him
that that was the best place for him, were demand
kind of realizing that, oh man, I screwed up here.
Speaker 5 (26:18):
I think that once again, guys, you know, I want
to make sure that I respect the confidentiality and the
privacy of the relationship, but I would just tell you
that we had a lot of conversations for weeks. I've
had conversations with numerous players on our football team for
(26:39):
weeks about the program and where they want to be
and what do they want to be a part of.
And as we continue to talk about everything that we
have going on here and how special of a program
we believe, and how we believe so much in our
fan base and in our alumni support, how we believe
that we can be one of the top programs in
(27:00):
many areas, not just football, but we can also you know,
lead the country at some point in time here in
an I l and lead the country sometime here and
getting our community back behind us and lead the country
and academics, and we believe in what we're doing. So
our conversations were what can we do together to help
both of us and our entire football team achieve our dreams?
(27:24):
And I think we felt at the end that the
same thing we felt the week before, which was what
he sed when he signed his contract, which was, you know,
let's go do this thing.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, well, Jed, before you go, I mean, I'm just
assuming this is gonna be a pretty busy offseason for you,
my friend. I mean, you've got a lot of stuff
going on internally now that you never maybe thought you
would have had to have dealt with, with some fence
mending with the guys potentially the soccer team, the fans,
the media. Then you've got to figure out how to
knock off some of these premier clubs, right, I mean,
just go back to what you saw from Demand Williams
(27:58):
a year ago against Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon teams like that.
Winning cures a lot of this man. You know that
as well as anybody. You're not naive. You know that
that this team starts getting some big wins and people
will forgive and forget very fast. So tell us about
what you think you can get done this offseason to
(28:18):
see some better numbers and some victories against the top
teams on your schedule.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
Yeah, I appreciate the football player said, man, you want
to get another segment, second ball, let's go.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Man.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
You know, I feel like we're at a spot. You know,
we made a six game jump to six wins to
nine wins. You know, as I mentioned before, we were
in Arizona, we went from one win to five win
to ten wins. You know, we're going into our year three.
We've got the same offensive system. We've got the same
defensive system. I love the we finished in the top
twenty in scoring offense and top twenty in scoring defense.
(28:56):
We we did a lot of great things in a
lot of games, and then we had a you know,
games where we've noticed that you look at this, you know,
the Michigan game, the Ohio State game, the Oregon game,
and even the Wisconsin game. You can see there's certain
games in this conference that are going to be you know,
low scoring games. I think we saw the Big Ten
(29:16):
championship game was thirteen to ten. We saw the you know,
there's been games that the the Miami Ohio State game
or whatever it was, I forget what it was a
week ago. So when Ohio State lost you know whoever,
It's like these games that are being played are a
little bit more low scoring in this conference. And what
(29:37):
we've got to do is we've got to win that
low scoring game. We can't just win the high scoring game.
So we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about
that fourth quarter of football. We're going to really invest
in the physicality and the toughness of our program. Our
offseat and training is going to be one in which
we're gonna ratchet it up one more notch. We believe
that the fourth quarter of games. We've had some great
(29:59):
fourth quarters, but in the in our four losses, we
lost the fourth quarter all though those were one score
games in the fourth nineteen to fourteen, fourteen to six,
seven all fourteen to seven, and then ten all and
those four games, we got to find a way to
win the final ten minutes, and that will be our
focus the whole offseason.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
I got a football question to wrap things up to coach.
When you see these teams playing last night and tonight,
what's the main difference you see between your roster and
what those look like right now?
Speaker 5 (30:30):
I think the most important thing I see is that
we're very close. The second thing that I see is
that you gotta be You gotta win in the trenches,
and when you come out to our first print practice,
you'll see how much bigger we even got from last
year to this year, and the jump that we made
from year two to year three. All of these teams
that are playing right now, you could see the violence
(30:54):
and the physicality that they play with the offensive line,
the defensive line, the linebackers, and that's what I'm most
proud of.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Yeah, Jed, before you go, I got one more for you,
all right, And I know that you're like, you got
to be kidding me, man, I thought.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
We were done.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
I thought I was off the hook here we're talking football.
But let me wrap it up where we started with
Demon Williams because you, yeah, exactly. You mentioned that he
will talk eventually. We all hope that happens sooner than later.
I mean, I'd like him to be prepared for that obviously.
So I'm certain that's what's happening behind the scenes. But
(31:26):
do you feel like there's a little something extra that
he needs to do to earn the trust back of
not just this fan base but also the university. There's
been some ideas kicked around donating money to the hospital
and honor amiya doing some maybe longer form in person
interviews with people Roy Firestone style, if you will, to
(31:47):
get all these questions that need to be asked, asked
so we can all move on. Do you think he's
got to maybe do a little bit of extra work
here over this offseason to earn that trust back.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
Here that I would say to that it's a situation
where somebody is telling him to do those things, then
I don't I don't think that anybody would be happy.
I think this is whatever Demand really believes that he
can do, whether it be I mean you mentioned a
donation or whatever it might be. I don't want to
(32:20):
tell somebody what to do. What I want Demand to
do is I want to mond to to continue to grow,
to mature, and to be comfortable. He is, you know,
he is someone that is learning how to be a pro.
And I think that over time he's going to continue
to learn and get better and appreciate so many things.
(32:40):
And I really hope that over these six months that
aren't fan base and you and the media and everybody
involved understand that really what we're talking about is, for
a two days fan we had a player that decided to,
you know, make a decision to kind of learn about
the college landscape in a manner that I don't think
(33:02):
he ever felt he would have had to learn and
now we all have learned a ton about college football,
and I hope we're all better because of what we learned.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, all right, listen, thanks for doing this.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Let's do it again very soon, and next time you
come on, I promise it'll be ninety eight percent football talk.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
How's that?
Speaker 5 (33:20):
I will accept ninety eight percent football talk anytime?
Speaker 3 (33:24):
All right, Jed, thanks for doing though, appreciate it, all right,
jetfish with us. We're gonna break come back, respond to that.
Millan's got to take on that. I know as well.
Here he's going to hop on at four o'clock.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I don't know. I think we might just need to
keep the segment open.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Guys, next segment, I we'll figure something else out with
that other guest we had planned next on ninety three
three KJRFM, now back to Football.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Friday, sponsored by Tito's Handmade Vodka on your home for
the NFL Sports Radio ninety.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Three point three KJRFL.
Speaker 5 (33:56):
We're right now currently dealing with a situation where nineteen
and I want demon to continue to learn. Obviously, he
saw on his post how apologetic he was in terms
of the timing of the post.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Yeah, it was interesting to hear Jetfish say he apologized
directly to Nicole Vandyke women's soccer coach over there. That
was obviously a major thing on Tuesday night when the
story came out. And if you missed Jetfish, by the way,
we're going to see you again coming up at six
pm tonight. By the way, you're gonna want to hear
the entire interview with the head coach of the Dogs.
But Sofia Dick Jackson with you. A Humilan will join
(34:34):
us a four. Kevin Harlan's coming up at five today.
But he mentioned the word to educate the team a
couple of times on a lot of stuff, and I
think what he meant by that, if I'm just reading
the tea leaves, is educating them on not only what
went down with Demon and how this whole thing happened.
For example, I'll just kind of throw this out there,
if Demon was influenced by outside sources, not to talking
(35:00):
about his agent, Doug Hendrickson, because his agent's already dropped him,
by the way, if he was influenced by his father,
if he was influenced by somebody else, this landers character
that Pete Damil's been kicking around. I want Jetfish to
let the guys know that that this is what happened.
We got a nineteen year old quarterback, a nineteen year
old kid. I would go directly to some of the
older guys on the team, including the Hatchet brothers by
(35:22):
the way, and talk to them as twenty two to
twenty three year olds and say, hey, this kid was
influenced by these guys and he made a stupid decision
and he made the wrong call. And then I think
he's also educating the guys on hey, when you sign
an NIL deal and a revenue share deal, this is
what happens, right. I mean, you saw Dellinger's report that
came out the other day that whoever signed Demon Williams
(35:42):
would have had to have paid Washington the value of
the contract, which we've heard is anywhere between four and
five million dollars, and they would have had that amount
of money deducted from their revenue share pool, and then
they would have had to have gone out and spent
more money on nil what they're collective to get him.
So I'm wondering, Dick, if Washington just showed the country
(36:06):
you sign he.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Got to an NIO deal. He's done.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
He's done because the price that you pay financially on
the other side is not going to be worth it.
So I think he wants his kids to know that.
I think he wants his kids to know why Deman
did what he did and why he was influenced to
do it.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
Yeah, it's interesting because we felt like this was going
to be an earth shattering story when we thought that
Demon was going to leave and that it would change
the rules in college football. Well, now that he's coming back,
it might just enforce the rules in college football, and
it may be an earth shattering situation. But I mean,
as much as we would all love for Jed to
(36:43):
just talk about everything in detail of what he said
with Demon Williams, he can't do that. I mean, he's
got to be protective of his kid. I mean I
thought he was protective and thought he was fatherly of him.
And honestly, wouldn't you like to be a player that
plays for a coach like that that knows when you
screw up this badly? Yeah, he's still gonna have your back.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Right Well, you know, look, I mean I'll be honest
with you. When we asked Jed about does demand need
to do anything extra behind the scenes we talked about.
I think it was your idea, Jackson, or somebody's idea
to make a donation to UDAB hospital and honor a
Mia Hammond, do some long form interviews and things like that.
I would have loved personally to have heard Jed say, yes,
(37:27):
I've got things that we're going to talk about. We're
going to work together, We're going to do some things here.
We're going to get demand's ideas, we're going to get
Demond's parents' ideas. Heck, we might even get the team's
ideas and do some stuff to get him back in
the good graces of the community and in the good
graces of the program. I mean, I'm telling you right now,
I know absolutely that he's got some fence mending to
(37:50):
do on campus behind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
There's no question about that.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
So from a personal perspective, Jackson, I would have loved
to have heard Jedfish say, yes, there are things that
we're going to do to try as much as we can.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
We're gonna make it genuine right.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
We don't want to just say do this, do this,
do this, but there are things we're gonna do to
try to get to that point.
Speaker 6 (38:08):
You're absolutely right. I couldn't agree with more with anything
you guys have said so far. The thing that I
took is that answer where he says, I don't want
it to be me telling him what to do. I
want to be his idea, right, And you connect that
with the earlier answer that we played kind of coming
in where he talked about Hell yeah, I spoke with
Van Dyk, I spoke with you know people, I spoke
with me as parents like I I I how about demand, right?
(38:32):
Like you know what like demand? You better be in
touch with that team. You better have these ideas because
that's how you gotta you make this ground.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
And those are what I would recommend to demand. Not
that he's listening right now, maybe it is. I'll just
tell you this that in this day and age a
college football the idea of media training, PR training things
like that, preparing players for interviews and all that. Don't
kid yourself, this is not all on Washington, Like they've
got a sports information staff over there.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Play now have their.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Own people, they have their own marketing people, they have
their own promotions people, they have their own lawyers. Demon's
camp and he's got a camp. Trust me better, Dan,
Well get him prepared. If he works with Darren Heidner,
who's a lawyer. He signed their Day, same guy that
represent Lucas when he went from Wisconsin to Michigan. I
really hope that his people, whoever they are. I'm not
(39:21):
even talking about you Dubbs people. I'm talking about his people,
get him prepared to answer those types of questions. And
that's going to be one of the first questions Jackson
jed Fish himself said he spoke to me as parents.
He said, he spoke to the cove and like, did
you talk to them? Did you reach out? And if
he's not prepared for those questions, that's going to be
on him, and that's going to be on his people
(39:44):
that are supposed to be protecting him and preparing him
for whenever that moment comes. So I hope it happens fast.
I hope it happens quick, Dick, and I really hope
he's ready for it. Man, we're going to break. Hugh
Millen is going to join us next on ninety three
to three KJARFM.
Dave 'Softy' Mahler and Dick Fain News
Popular Podcasts
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.
iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Milan Cortina Winter Olympics
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina are here and have everyone talking. iHeartPodcasts is buzzing with content in honor of the XXV Winter Olympics We’re bringing you episodes from a variety of iHeartPodcast shows to help you keep up with the action. Follow Milan Cortina Winter Olympics so you don’t miss any coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics, and if you like what you hear, be sure to follow each Podcast in the feed for more great content from iHeartPodcasts.