Jedd Fisch explains importance of having a large crowd for a spring game

In previous seasons Washington‘s spring game simply served as a final spring practice and scrimmage within the program. But not this year, as the Huskies launched their brand new ‘Dawgs After Dark’ spring game last Friday in an event open to the public. Drawing in 18,448 fans in Husky Stadium ahead of the team’s first season under new head coach Jedd Fisch.

“It’s important to me, I love it. I love a chance for our fans to experience what our kids get to do every day. Why play in an empty stadium if you can play in not an empty one?” Fisch asked following the game.

Dawgs After Dark was free for fans and featured fan fest activities outside of the stadium ahead of kickoff. With former Washington players like Michael Penix Jr., Vita Vea, Marcus Peters, and others making an appearance at an event that Fisch believes can grow even more in the future.

“I think hopefully next year’s spring game we could even have more people,” Fisch said. “Maybe their buddies and their friends will tell them, ‘Hey that was a great night, let’s bring a fiend.’ If everybody brought a friend maybe we’d have a sellout. How awesome would that be?”

“We need to make it more of a party atmosphere on the spring game and really just enjoy ourselves out there. That’s what the whole idea is so we pushed it. We wanted people to be here, they responded.”

The Purple Team defended the Gold Team in a 24-23 in what seemed to be a successful inaugural Dawgs After Dark event. But Fisch was also not naive to the impact that last year’s success potentially brought to the spring game after the Huskies won the Pac-12 title and made an appearance in the national championship game.

“It’s also a credit to last year’s team, I’m sure these fans wanted to come see. They wanted to see what it looked like,” Fisch explained. “Last year’s team was 14-1 and now you’ve got a chance to come back here and celebrate last year’s team while kicking off this team. And one thing we’ll never forget is the success of last year’s team, and the year before, and we’re going to try to build off that.”

Husky fans are hoping Fisch can pick up where former head coach Kalen DeBoer left off following an impressive two-year stretch with the Washington program. As he’ll look to do so in the midst of drastic roster and coach turnover along with a transition to the Big Ten Conference.