Washington draws a (better) crowd for Jedd Fisch's first spring game
Official attendance: 18,448. For the Huskies, that's progress.
SEATTLE — There were enough humans in the lower stands — and a cool enough bite to the air on this May evening by the water — that if you squinted and allowed the marching band to be your guide, you might have believed the Washington Huskies were completing the final minutes of a real-life blowout victory, and not the final minutes of a contest that featured linebackers and soccer coaches kicking field goals for points.
Sure, new coach Jedd Fisch set an impossibly ambitious attendance goal for his first spring game — branded as “Dawgs after Dark,” even if much of it took place pre-nightfall — and the Huskies were never going to get the 40,000 he sought. But UW did announce Friday’s attendance at 18,448 — based on tickets scanned — which establishes a new standard for modern-era spring attendance at Husky Stadium, low as that bar might have been set by previous staffs who treated it more like a regular ol’ practice.
The student turnout was particularly strong, and the corresponding volume — albeit mostly reserved for non-football action, as is customary at these events — suggested greater energy than the mild, practice-like gatherings typically present for the Huskies’ spring finale.
“Why play in an empty stadium if you can play in not an empty one?” Fisch said. “I think hopefully, next year’s spring game, we can even have more people. Maybe their buddies will tell them, ‘hey, that was a great night. Let’s come.’ 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 for the spring game, and really just enjoy ourselves out there.
“… 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. 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. 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 of that.”