Troy Dannen addresses the timeline of Washington hiring Jedd Fisch

On Jan. 9, all seemed normal. Nick Saban was the head coach at Alabama, Kalen DeBoer was a few days removed from a national championship appearance at Washington and Jedd Fisch was looking at what’s next following a 10-win campaign at Arizona.

Then, the domino effect started. Saban announced his retirement Jan. 10, and Alabama announced DeBoer as his replacement two days later. Washington then started its coaching search, eventually making its decision to hire Fisch Monday night.

It made for a quick turnaround for Troy Dannen to replace a coach that took Washington to the brink of a title after just two seasons. But the process got going before DeBoer officially took the Alabama job, and he knew he had to act fast.

“In some ways, you’re in search mode every day,” Dannen said during Fisch’s introductory press conference. “You never know. And so obviously, that list was percolating. But really, when I got notification on Thursday from Alabama that they wanted to talk to Kalen formally, we kind of went into full-bore, lockdown search mode. Now, if we didn’t need to hire a coach, we didn’t need to hire a coach. But the exercise began at that point in time.

“That’s when — I like to use the term lockdown — where that’s when we got in the office and just started really digging. But in some ways, and I’ve said this, when we had an unsigned contract and we couldn’t get it signed, it gave me pause. And so I wanted to make sure that I was prepared if we got to this eventuality.”

While DeBoer took UW to a national championship in just two seasons, Fisch had a much tougher rebuild. He inherited an Arizona team that was coming off an 0-5 record in the final year of the Kevin Sumlin era, and his first season ended with a 1-11 mark. But Fisch and the Wildcats got things going, and the three-year stretch ended with a 10-3 record this year — including an Alamo Bowl victory over Oklahoma.

Now, Jedd Fisch is returning to Seattle, where he served as the Seahawks’ quarterbacks coach in 2010 under Pete Carroll. He’s not arriving empty-handed, though. Some members of his Arizona staff are preparing to join him, he said.

“One of the things Troy asked me when he interviewed me was ‘Tell me a little bit about your culture. I said ‘Not explainable, but transferable. Because it’s all about the people that made our culture.’ Our coaching staff in Arizona made the culture to win in Arizona,” Fisch said. “Those people are extremely important to me… It’s going to be our goal to get all of them here and to get that crew to stay together.

“We have some fantastic coaches, I hope all of them come with us. And we’re able to bring that camaraderie, the personal touch, the families all together and I think we will.”