The second-year coach expanded on the mindset of the team following the loss to the No. 1 Buckeyes
The Washington football program suffered its first loss of the season on Saturday. The Huskies lost to the No. 1 Ohio State Buckeyes 24-6 on Sept. 27, which snapped Washington's 22-game win streak at home in Husky Stadium and dropped the team to 3-1 on the year.
The Huskies were able to keep pace with the defending College Football Playoff national champions throughout most of the game. Ohio State led by one possession going into halftime (7-3) and going into the fourth quarter (14-6).
Washington was unable to find the end zone despite several trips inside the Buckeyes' 20-yard line, which Huskies coach Jedd Fisch highlighted as a major takeaway from his team's loss.
"It was a good game. Disappointed in the fact we had three (third-and-3's or less) and we only converted on one of those," Fisch said in a weekly news conference Monday. "Disappointed in the fact that we had three possessions inside the 20-yard line and only had six points. You can't have a first-and-goal on the (2-yard line) and first-and-goal at the (7-yard line) and walk away with six points. ... Those were three possessions that were critical that we need to be better at. But we'll learn from it and hopefully we'll have an opportunity here to play better on Saturday than we did this past one."
Despite pointing out where Washington fell short Saturday, Fisch was encouraged by how Washington was able to match up with Ohio State for most of the game. There was typical disappointment in coming out on the wrong end of a closely-contested game, but there was enough good put on film for the team to feel confident in the rest of the season.
"There's a difference between disappointment and discouragement." Fisch said. "We were not discouraged. We were disappointed. When you're disappointed, you just refocus and you move forward. And that's what we're gonna do. We felt we matched up well (against Ohio State). I don't think there was a question.
"At one point in the first half, we were double the yardage. ... We won the turnover battle. We took the ball away once, we were plus-one there. We had goal-to-go two different times, they had goal-to-go two different times. So we kind of felt like we went head-to-head, so our guys were encouraged regarding that and confident that they can keep on that upward trajectory."
The Huskies will travel to the east coast to face Maryland (4-0) at 12:30 p.m. PT on Oct. 4.
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