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December 3, 2024 15 mins
The Husky Honks - Dave Softy Mahler, Mario Bailey, and Greg Lewis, get together to discuss the loss to Oregon last weekend, reflect on the 2024 season and Jedd Fisch’s first year on Montlake, looking ahead to the roster in 2025, and what’s ahead for Jedd.
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Your Home for the Huskies proudly presents the Coors Light
Husky Honks on Tuesdays, powered by Emerald Queen Casino, Setter Medals,
Seeks Pizza by UA Local thirty two, Hider Construction by
Zoom care R and our foundation specialists, your Northwest Chevy
Nealers and by Darwin Natural Pet Food. Now the Husky Honks,

(00:25):
Great Lewis, Mario Bailey and your host Dave Suffie Muller.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
All right, but Missy Tuesday continues, Sati Diako Jackson in
for Ian Ferness. What do you say we do a
little abbreviated version of the Husky Hanks Show normally Tuesdays
at four o'clock, but with the Kraken game at Carolina,
we'll do a little mini me version of the Husky Hanks.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Greg Lewis, Mario Bailey.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Big thanks to all of our sponsors, including our friends
at Valentine Roofing, Hyder Construction, Darwin's Natural Pet Products, Frost Brewed,
cors Light, Emerald Queen Casino and more. And guys, there
was nothing fun about what we saw Saturday night in Eugene, Oregon.
The best part about Saturday was celebrating Mario Bailey's birthday.
So I hope you enjoyed that fowl, but we were

(01:06):
hoping for a little bit of a better gift from
the Huskies. Is they just get taken to the woodshed
by Oregon forty nine twenty one loss to the Ducks.
The Ducks are Dot twelve and zero and on their way, guys,
to the Big Ten championship against Penn State. But never
mind all that, let's just focus on what we saw
from the Husky Saturday. And Greg, why don't we start
with you man ten sacks. You had a chance, you thought,

(01:29):
maybe at halftime, but obviously things went south in a
hurry there as well in the second quarter.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
What do you make of what you saw Saturday?

Speaker 4 (01:36):
And Eugene, Buddy, Well, it's more the same on the road.

Speaker 5 (01:38):
You know, we play, you know, decently in the first half,
but the second half, the superiority of Oregon's offensive and
defensive lines really bore out. There's just a big gap
between us and them right now in the front, you know,
ten guys, and that goes all the way back to
we lost everyone. Everybody transferred out, anybody that had any

(02:00):
experience on our defensive line, on our offensive line are
suited up somewhere else this year, and coming into the.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
Season, we kind of knew this was a gap.

Speaker 5 (02:08):
But when you play the number one team in the country,
which you know, hats off the organize who they are,
you know, you see that gap, you see it full throttle.
And in the second half that's exactly what we saw.
We couldn't get a pass off.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
We couldn't.

Speaker 5 (02:20):
I mean, Jonah Coleman had probably his worst day of
football he's ever had in his life.

Speaker 4 (02:24):
I'm sure he hasn't had many of those.

Speaker 5 (02:26):
And as valliant as the young rookie, you know, Demon
Williams did at quarterback, it just wasn't enough because you
can only use your capability if you got a little
bit of time. So it was just unfortunate that there's
that big a gap between us and them on the
offensive a defensive line.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, eleven carries for Jonah Coleman Mario for three yards
in the game on Saturday, and Greg mentioned the ten
sacks and I don't know, the whole point of playing
the young guy was to avoid those sacks and have
him take off and wiggle out of some pressure, and
that did not happen. So what do you think? What'd
you think of what you saw Mario Saturday at Austin
Stadium Pell.

Speaker 6 (03:03):
Yeah, they simular to Greg, it's just the same thing
that we've seen on the road all season long. It's
that we're playing the number one team and our most
hated rival on their home field and they just gave
it to us. I thought the first half we had
a chance. That one fumble that we had in the
first quarter or the second quarter that cost us and
made them go up fourteen to six. I kind of

(03:25):
knew at that point that the game was over, but
I was hoping that on the second half we could
do something. But in the second half, they became even
more dominant, and it's the same thing that we've been
seeing all season long.

Speaker 7 (03:36):
Greg talks about it all the time.

Speaker 6 (03:38):
In the second half, and the trenches were getting dominated.
Not only to get dominated, we got dominated on both
sides of the ball, their offensive line and their defensive line.
I thought coach could have did a better job of
figuring out some type of play calling. But we're trying
to come back and we're trying to pass the ball
a little bit.

Speaker 7 (03:56):
We can't run it.

Speaker 6 (03:57):
We couldn't do anything It's almost like we could have
just sat on the ball and took a knee for
the rest of the game and just ran the clock out.
But they just totally dominated us, dominated us on both
sides of the ball.

Speaker 7 (04:09):
I'm just happy you didn't get two.

Speaker 6 (04:11):
Out of hand, because for a second there, I thought
they were going for the sixty year to seventy on us.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, and Greg, you had that little sequence there about
four minutes in the second quarter where you thought you
had a shot down seven to six, and then things
just kind of really got away and it started. I
thought with the pooch kicks that for some reason Jed
Fish and Jordan Pow Pow and company thought were the
right idea given the ball to Oregon at their own
forty six yard line, and then four plays later they're
in the end zone and they're up fourteen to six.

(04:37):
I mean, what the heck was happening with those pooch
kicks And why would they even remotely think about giving
Oregon better fuel position versus just kicking the ball out.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Of the end zone.

Speaker 5 (04:46):
Yeah, there's got to be something there that we don't
know about. You know, we're insiders, but we're not obviously
that inside. I don't know if there's something they saw
on film where they were really afraid to punt the
ball to the kick returner and afraid of him having
a big return and getting the ball into the end zone.
I'm not exactly sure what the reasoning behind that was.
We can only speculate, but it was unfortunate that a

(05:11):
team who's already you know, got so many advantages against
you that you spot them great field position pretty much
throughout the game. And the Jonah Coleman fumble, I think
I swear it was completely you know, turned over to
them where we gave them the ball on about the
twenty five yard line and at that point, I think
the game was over when they scored that touchdown. And unfortunately,

(05:33):
you know, for us, this is the situation we're in.
But I do think there were some good things that
you saw. As much as that young man took ten sacks,
I never seen him get down. I never saw him
get discouraged. I never saw him, you know, act defeated.
I think that, you know, that bodes well for us.
I certainly think that our wide receivers played overall. You know,

(05:58):
we got you know, a guy involved who we hadn't
seen Jeremiah Hunter all year. Getting him involved was a
good thing. Unfortunately he does have any others Billy left,
but there were some good things. I thought there was
a couple of really good beat balls that demand through.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
So we know he has the arm string.

Speaker 5 (06:16):
If we can have guys protect him a little better
in the near future, I think we have something at quarterback.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, and guys, I guess the question is do we
leave and I know there's one more game to go,
the Bowl game. We'll see where they're heading, likely Saturday
night or Sunday morning. Do we leave the regular season
with kind of good vibes, negative vibes kind of what
we thought the vibes would be, Mario, kind of where's
where's your head at? After the first twelve games of
the Jetfish era.

Speaker 6 (06:42):
I told you when we talked about coaches, great and
I gave him a B minus like a C plus.
You know, I felt like we left some on the
table with those two games. We could have won with
Rutgers in Washington State, and I think those two to
be eight and four is a lot better than.

Speaker 7 (06:59):
Six and six.

Speaker 6 (07:00):
So but you know, fifty new players, we should be
happy that we're in a bowl game, and we did
what we did this year, so it's an accomplishment. Disappointed,
of course that we couldn't win on the road all
year long, but for the most part, coach Fish did
a great.

Speaker 7 (07:17):
Job of keeping his team together.

Speaker 5 (07:19):
Yeah, I would you know, I might give the coaches
the loss at Washington State with the play call at
the end, but I think the Rutgers loss was just
a kid who for whatever reason just had a you know,
a brain fart and did some that I've never seen
happen before. So I predicted six and six, seven and five,

(07:42):
and I think this was a seven and five football team.
For them to go seven and five with you know,
all the turnover and all the change, to me gives
them a passing grade because that's what I expected if
you looked at it on paper before the season. Seven
and five was a very reasonable attainment for them, and
I think that's what he ended up because I'll give
the Washington State loss on the coaches, but I think

(08:04):
the players really cost that that Rutgers loss. So, you know,
for all tis first, this is a seven and five
football team.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, I guess.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
I guess if you were kind of guys started to
run the simulator a thousand times. You know, you'd take
a game where a team out gains the opponent by
seventy yards in one game, and then they outgained the
opponent and the Rutgers game by over two hundred and
twenty yards. If you ran those simulations a thousand times,
the team with the most yards would typically come out
on top. And they didn't do that. I mean, they

(08:31):
cleaned up the penalties, There's no question about that. As
the year went on. I just don't know if this
offensive line got any better. Guys, And you know, Dick
and I Mario had this conversation yesterday on the radio
show that if you were to tell me that there's
anybody on the offensive line that automatically deserves a starting
spot next year, without any questions asked and no competition,
I don't think there's one guy on this offensive line

(08:52):
that deserves to have his spot Mario back next year,
and that to me is disappointing. Look, you know, obviously
you knew against Penn's, you know, Indiana, Iowa, Oregon, you
might have some problems. But to be sitting here at
all of us, I think admitting and Mario, you can
tell me what you think that they might need four
new starters or five new starters next year, That to
me is disappointing.

Speaker 7 (09:13):
That is definitely disappointing.

Speaker 6 (09:15):
And yes, every job should be up for competition, I'm sure,
like you know, you can look at something on TV,
and you can look at something from the stands, but
it's very different when you're watching films. So there might
be one guy on the offensive line, I'm not sure
who that is that might have done well, but he's
still going to have to fight for his job. But
that's good, you know, for us coming into next year

(09:37):
after having fifty one new players. Everything should be up
for competition. That's even Jonah, and that's demand. It should
be great competition. So I'm looking forward to that. But
I'm hopeful that in this portal and in this recruiting
class that we start focusing on the trenches because we
really struggled on the defensive line and the offensive line
this year.

Speaker 5 (09:59):
Let me at this though, and you guys, I've been
as critical of the offensive line as anybody, but somehow
they managed to produce a thousand yard rusher in Joonah Coleman,
and it wasn't all just Joonah Coleman breaking thirty and
forty tackles himself.

Speaker 4 (10:15):
So what I think.

Speaker 5 (10:17):
We've seen is is that there's a big gap between
the good teams and the bad teams. And the good teams,
you know, they dominated us, they showed us that we
weren't ready. And then there are enough bad teams the
UCLA is, the USC's, you know, the Northwesterns, you know,
teams like that in a conference where we were able
to push them around with our offense. So it's kind

(10:38):
of like the teams that are in the middle is
there's this big gap between the really good teams and
the teams that aren't that good because they were still
able to open up holes to get Joonah Coleman a
thousand yard rusher. And I don't care who you you are,
your offensive line's got to do something. But I just
think we feasted on the teams that are, you know,
at that lower level.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, I mean, I guess.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
I mean, look, if you want to kind of lower
the standard a little bit for this team.

Speaker 5 (11:01):
I'm just saying, well that there's still a big gap,
so we can be competitive with a lot of the teams.
There's probably those four or five that are just way
better than us, and we got to figure out how
to close that gap.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
I just don't think, for example, next year will be
content just saying they had a thousand yard rusher, right,
And I'm not saying that you are content at all.
And by the way, I do think it's fair too
lower the standards a little bit for this year because
they did have fifty new guys Brio talked about. I
mean they were there were thirty six players in college
football that ran for a thousand yards. The Huskies were
fifty fifth and rushing offense. They went from thirteenth and

(11:34):
scoring offense to one hundred and ninth in scoring offense
this year, which really, in the end is all that matters,
right how many points you score. And for a Jedfish
offense to be one hundred and ninth in the nation
in scoring offense, that is obviously not where you want
to be. But I do give them a little bit
of a pass because of the brand new system and
all the new players they've got. The question, guys becomes
how much better can they get? Over the offseason, they

(11:56):
tried to get better with their offensive line compared to
where they were in February in the portal, we're not
able to add a ton of note. They added some guys,
but nothing of real significance. So Mario, heading into this offseason, now,
how much faith do you have in the coaching staff
to make this offensive line significantly better than it was
this year.

Speaker 6 (12:16):
I have a lot of faith. I think that coach
is a great recruiter. I think you can say a
lot and you have your strengths when you're a coach.
I think one of Coach's strength is recruiting, and I
know he understands and he watched that butt kicking that
we just got in Oregon on Saturday, that the trenches
is where it's at, and I know he's going to
go out and get some recruits. I seen somebody on

(12:37):
Twitter just committed the other day. I also seen we
lost the guys. So but I have a lot of
faith in coach. Coach and I think he's a great recruiter,
and I know he understands what he needs for his team.

Speaker 4 (12:48):
So here's what I think.

Speaker 5 (12:52):
To get better faster is going to have to happen
in the portal, not necessarily recruiting. They're doing a great
job recruiting in two three years from now. They got
some studs that they're going to be bringing through on
the offensive line that are mature at that point. But
right now, it's about the portal. When I think about
what they spent at least on the offensive line last year,
they obviously didn't spend very much and I'm not sure

(13:14):
how much portal money they spent, so.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
I think he kind of was saving his portal money.

Speaker 7 (13:19):
For this year.

Speaker 5 (13:19):
I think he looked at last ye's team and said,
we're not going to compete. Yeah, so I'm going to
save some money to roll over for next year. And
he's got to be putting those allocating those resources towards
the offensive line. It's like the NFL now, so now,
how much money do you have to go rebuild your
offensive line with the portal? And I think they probably
got plenty of money. You know, you gotta pay for demand.

(13:42):
They've obviously made a commitment to Jonah, but I think
the rest of those resources can go towards the offensive line,
and I think what they did was they sand bag
to save some money from last year.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
I hope you're right.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Maybe Jaggs should go to the podium tomorrow on a
starting day and just have a bunch of coins in
his pocket and start jiggling them around, like, hey, we're
ready to go for the offseason now, boys and girls.
But before we close it out, Demon Williams, Mario, your
thoughts on this kid what you saw Saturday?

Speaker 3 (14:06):
He's the future of the program.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
How do you feel about turning this thing over to
number two starting next year?

Speaker 6 (14:11):
Well, I can't go without giving you guys a shot
that we should have had him in there three games ago.
But I thought he did a phenomenal job with the
pressure that he was under. He went seventeen for twenty
and two hundred. He did a phenomenal job. Looking forward
to the future.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yep, Greg, gy about you to wrap it up here, I.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
Think he did a really good job.

Speaker 5 (14:27):
I think we'll see a different offense where he's not
dropping back and passing so much.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
Where he's moving, they're moving the pocket.

Speaker 5 (14:33):
They'll be able to implement that offense from the bowl game, offseason,
spring ball all the way into the next fall, So
we'll see a different offense with him operating.

Speaker 4 (14:42):
I think he's going to be fantastic.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
And all of us agree though that to get back
to where they want to be, which, let's face it,
the next step is competing for a Big ten championship.
They got to focus and fix the line of scrimmage
on both sides of the ball.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
There's no debate on that, right, guys, none.

Speaker 4 (14:56):
At all, no mine.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Good all right, Hey, great stuff this year. Appreciate both
you guys. We'll get together very soon before the ball game.
Another year of the Husky Hawks is in the book.
Greg Mario, good work and we'll talk soon, fellows. Thanks pal.
All right, Greg Lewis Mario Bailey Husky Hawks on mini version.
There we got cracking hockey coming to pregame through thirty
faced off at four from Carolina
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