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Jedd Fisch preached loyalty to his Arizona players; now he’s paying a price for it

matt zemek
·4 min read
34

One of the core values Jedd Fisch tried to communicate to his Arizona football players over the past few seasons was loyalty. Fisch made that an important part of his messaging to the Wildcats. Therefore, when Fisch took the open head coaching job with the Washington Huskies, he probably assumed his players would follow him to Montlake out of a sense of loyalty. It wasn’t the worst assumption to make. Plenty of us who follow college football know that in many cases, players play for a coach more than a university.

We saw this at USC when Tackett Curtis and Domani Jackson transferred out of the program rather than play for the new incoming defensive coaching staff. Alex Grinch and especially Donte Williams forged strong relationships with some recruits. Those recruits wanted to play for those coaches, not other ones. This is true at other schools as well.

However, at the University of Arizona, Noah Fifita and Tetairoa McMillan wanted to be Wildcats in the same way Miller Moss wants to be a Trojan. Some players really do play for the school, not the coach. Fisch is not retaining nearly as many players in Seattle as he hoped he would. Arizona is not losing players the way it feared it would.

See what’s being said about Arizona’s roster holding up surprisingly well due to loyalty — to a school, not a coach:

JUST FOLLOWING WHAT COACH SAID

UW NIL WORRIES?

OREGON FANS LAUGH AT WASHINGTON NOT GETTING THE GOLD RUSH IT HOPED FOR

ZING!

GULP

PLOT TWIST!

ARIZONA DONOR FIGHTS BACK

IT'S PERSONAL

THOSE WHO STAY WILL BE CHAMPIONS

SOUNDS FISCHY

ARIZONA WEBSITE LEANS INTO THE LOYALTY THEME

THE BITTERNESS IN TUCSON IS REAL

DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL!

TEARS

ARIZONA WEBSITE IS UNIMPRESSED

CHEF'S KISS

Story originally appeared on Trojans Wire