We can only assume that the Washington coaches feel very good about what the current roster gives them. Coach Fisch only brought in one Edge player from the portal after losing an often enigmatic Zach Durfee and a very valuable piece in big Deshawn Lynch.
Demond Williams Jr. addressed the media for the first time since his brief portal stint, calling it a mistake fueled by “bad advice.” Jedd Fisch used Signing Day to talk roster direction, leadership, and what’s next as UW turns toward spring ball.
Potential. It’s a wonderful word. It gives one hope. A direction. But, that’s all it is. Basically, potential means nothing has been accomplished. As an old coach once said, “potential only means you haven’t done s^*+, yet.” In a year many felt the UW was pointing towards making a push for the playoffs, a series of departures along the front wall has left us with questions, but potential.
Where the staff is going with the defensive line is a hard one for me to understand. I don’t know if what they finished with was their entire plan or if there were wrenches thrown into the works half way through the portal season. While we have to be excited for potential of who the Huskies brought into to program, it is the half empty side of the story that has me concerned.
Back in 1986 while I was serving as a young receiver coach at Central Washington University. Then head coach Tom Parry pulled an old picture out of his desk, looked at it and chuckled a little. “You know, football hasn’t changed much.”
I fully understand the philosophy that Coach Fisch is using to build the roster. Pay the guys that are on your team. You have to take care of your own or somebody else will. If you want to be a front runner, you have to build from within the program, recruiting the high school athlete and developing them for two years, especially the offensive line, to be front line contributors. However, in order to win at the highest level, you still have to have playmakers.
As the Transfer Portal begins to slow to a crawl and the Rosters for the 2026 season begins to solidify with contractual ink beginning to dry, we will take some time and look at each of the position rooms. No one other than the Washington staff knows exactly what went on over the past four weeks. But, one is left with a few observations.
First, the portal did not make the team better than the Huskies were last year. Any improvement on the 2025 season will have to come from the development of players already on the roster. In many ways, I was left with what I call Post-Portal Depression. Less than impressed with what the Dawgs brought in. It is obvious, most of the Husky NIL soft-funds (outside money) was spent on the current roster.
Washington dipped back into the transfer portal Sunday with a key addition at wide receiver, landing veteran target Christian Moss from Kennesaw State—a bigger-bodied outside option who brings both proven production and a fresh eligibility boost that strengthens the Huskies’ roster math moving forward.
Moss arrives in Seattle after a productive 2025 season for the Owls. Listed around 6-foot-3 and roughly 200 pounds, he posted 45 receptions for 689 yards and two touchdowns last fall, giving Washington an experienced pass-catcher with downfield juice (over 15 yards per catch) and the kind of frame that typically profiles well on the boundary.
“The University of Washington is proud to have two inductees in the 2026 NFF College Football Hall of Fame class,” said Pat Chun, UW Director of Athletics. “On behalf of all Huskies, we congratulate Olin Kreutz and Coach Chris Petersen, who represent excellence at every level of the game. From dominant performance and longevity to leadership, integrity, and lasting impact, their careers helped set the standard of excellence with Washington Football. We look forward to celebrating their inductions this year.”
College football is no longer arguing about whether players should be paid or whether movement should be allowed. Those debates are effectively over. The sport has crossed the threshold into a new economic era—one where money, roster churn, and competitive balance are now inseparable from Saturday afternoons.
Williams’ short-lived transfer flirtation lit up the sport because it wasn’t just about a player testing the market — it was about what happens when a star tries to move after signing a major agreement. The situation escalated quickly, with talk of legal action, conference-level concern about precedent, and a flood of speculation around which programs might be willing to step into a potential mess.
If there is one trait that youth possess that seems to evade the rest of us, it’s the ability to move on. The players at Washington will have to call upon that ability to forgive and move on as they begin winter workouts in preparation for the 2026 season.
Quarterback is the one position you can’t fake. If UW doesn’t land a viable starter-level option quickly, everything downstream suffers: portal receivers hesitate, linemen think twice, and spring becomes a holding pattern instead of a launchpad.
