Now that the 2026 signing day is past (although UW didn’t add any scholarship players this week), the roster is mostly set for the 2026 season.
Last year I put together a list of 10 goals for UW football for 2025. (https://www.uwdawgpound.com/2025/2/6/24360368/uw-football-goals-for-2025) UW did well, achieving 8 out of 10 of the goals. (https://www.uwdawgpound.com/washington-football/72817/reviewing-the-2025-uw-football-goals)
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Because UW did well last year, some of this year’s goals will be a little more of a stretch compared to last year; others will be about the same. Sure, it would be great to have a goal of winning the Big Ten and making the CFP, but while some Husky fans think that making the CFP is possible this year, I’m setting the bar a little lower and hoping that UW over-achieves in 2026. Here are the more goals that I have for 2026.
Football Goals
1) Win more than half of the conference away games.
Last year the goal was just to win one game away from Husky Stadium. UW actually won 4 out of the 6 games they played away from Husky Stadium-including the bowl game. But, they only won 2 of their 4 conference away games. In 2026 they will play 5 conference away games, so the goal is to win at least 3 of those.
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UW has a good chance of achieving this. Two of the away games are against Michigan State and Purdue. While those games are multiple time zones away, those were two of the teams in the bottom part of the conference in 2025. At this point UW should be favored against Purdue-probably by multiple scores. Michigan State has a new coach, so they could be improved a lot; this game may or may not be easy. Another away game is Nebraska, which was a decent (but not great) team in 2025; playing them on the road may not be easy. The final two away games are at USC and at Oregon. Both teams return their starting QB and have added a lot of talent since last season. Neither game should be easy. So, basically the goal is to win the games against both Purdue and Michigan State and win at least one of the other 3.
2) Win at least 5 of their home games.
This is the same goal as last year. UW will play 7 home games, including 3 non-conference games.
UW’s 3 non-conference games are all against teams where they should be favored: WSU, Utah State, and Eastern Washington. The conference games should be tougher. For the third year in a row, UW will host the reigning national champion-this year that is Indiana. This will, no doubt, be a difficult game. UW also hosts Iowa, whose defense should again be very good-and keep the game close. Penn State also comes to Husky Stadium. They have a new coaching staff and will have a lot of new players, so it is hard to know at this point how hard this game will be, but we shouldn’t expect that it will be easy. And finally, there is Minnesota. The Golden Gophers struggled some in 2025, but may be improved in 2026. Hopefully the home field advantage works in UW’s favor. Six home wins in 2026 seems possible, but getting at least 5 is the goal.
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3) Win games that they are supposed to win.
This is similar to the goal from last year. Last year they lost their game at Wisconsin when they were a favorite going into the game. This year, the goal should be to win games when they are the favorite going into the game. Right now UW should be favored in all 3 non-conference games, plus (as mentioned above) away games against Purdue and Michigan State. UW should also be favored at home against Minnesota. They could be favored at Nebraska. And UW could also be favored against Iowa and Penn State, since both are home games, but it may be too early to know for sure.
Ideally fans would also like to see UW beat a team when they are the underdog. That would show progress toward moving up in the rankings. But if UW is favored in all 9 of those games, and they win all of them, that will be progress as well.
4) Be ranked in the final CFP (top-25) of the 2026 season.
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Last year the goal was only to be ranked at some point in the CFP rankings. UW did achieve that by being ranked in the first CFP rankings, and then dropping out after their loss to Wisconsin. This year the goal expands that and to be ranked in the final CFP ranking (just before the bowls).
This will definitely be a challenge this year given their schedule. Either UW needs to be ranked high going into the last 2 games (probably with a record of at least 9-1), or they may need to win what looks now to be an upset in one of those last 2 games (Indiana and Oregon).
5) Be in the top 25 in both scoring offense and scoring defense.
Last year I had the goal of being in the top 50 in both scoring offense and scoring defense. UW easily exceeded those goals, finishing #17 in scoring offense (34.1 per game) and #15 in scoring defense (18.7 per game). All UW has to do is to finish like they did last year to achieve this goal.
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Last year the defense was consistently good-never allowing more than 26 points in any game. It was the offense that was inconsistent-scoring over 45 points per game in their wins and less than 10 points per game in their losses. Ideally, I’m sure Husky fans would like to see the scoring be more consistent, but as long as the wins are there, I don’t think that fans will complain too much about a 13-10 win instead of a 45-19 win.
6) Be in the top 60 in Special Teams.
Last year the goal was to be in the top 75 after being below 100 in 2024. UW improved in special teams, but still didn’t achieve the goal of being in the top 75. But because there was improvement, and because they should continue to improve, the goal this year is to be in the top 60, which would be the top half of FBS teams.
Coach Fisch has put some effort into improving Special Teams by bringing in 3 new specialists (2 kickers and a punter). Husky fans can hope that those specialists, plus continued work in that area, can result in continued improvement.
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Similar to last year’s goal, it doesn’t matter which of the advanced stat rankings has UW in the top 60, as long as at least one does.
7) Win a bowl game over a P4 team.
While I’m sure that Husky fans were happy for the win over Boise State, most would have liked to have played against a team from one of the other P4 conferences. We don’t know yet what bowls the Big Ten will have to the 2026, but we can still have a goal of having a good enough record that they will face a P4 team in their bowl game. And if they do face a P4 team, then win.
Recruiting Goals
Recruiting for 2027 is in full swing with the coaches visiting recruits and making even more offers. This is a time when relationships are solidified so that visits, both unofficial (like for Junior Day) and official visits (later this spring and summer) are set up.
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Coach Fisch was able to put together a top-15 recruiting class for 2026. That was an improvement from the 2025 class. What should the realistic goals be for the 2027 recruiting class?
1) Have an average recruit rating (on 247Sports) of at least 90.
Last year the goal was to have an average recruit rating of 89. UW’s 2026 class finished with an average rating of 89.69, so having an average of 90 doesn’t seem like a huge improvement. But UW’s 2026 class was helped by having a 5-star (Kodi Greene) in the class. Will they get another 5-star in the 2027 class? It’s possible. But Greene had a connection to the state of Washington, and I’m not sure that any of the other 5-stars in the 2027 class do, so getting another one could be more difficult. But that doesn’t mean that UW can’t still improve their average rating.
2) Get at least 10 blue chip (4-star or 5-star) recruits.
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Last year the goal was to get at least 9 blue chip recruits in UW’s 2026 class; UW actually got 12. Maybe the goal should be the same as they got in the 2026 class or even higher? But at this point it looks like the 2027 class may be smaller than the 2026 class, so 10 blue chips seems more realistic at this point. They already have two blue chips (Zerek Sidney and Braylon Pope) of the 4 commits so far, so they are on a path to achieve this already-but it is still really early.
3) Sign at least one recruit from outside of Washington that is rated in the top 100 (247Sports Composite).
This is the same goals as last year. UW had 2 of the top 100 commits on the 247Sports Composite in the 2026 class (Kodi Greene and Brian Bonner). Ideally you’d like to see UW get better and better each year. But at some point that isn’t going to be realistic. And with lots of programs throwing around big money at recruits (more than UW currently can), the best that UW can probably shoot for is to continue to try to get one or two of the top 100 recruits.
Final Thoughts
Overall, the goal for UW in 2026 should be to build off of what they did in 2025 and continue to have UW in the top half of the Big Ten. The goals above should definitely do that. The Big Ten has a lot of very good teams. A goal of getting into the conversation for being in the Big Ten title game may be a bit of aa stretch at this point. But especially with the way they played in the bowl game, UW showed that it has the potential to be in that conversation. Given the talent that Coach Fisch added to the roster, as well as what should be continued improvement from the returning players-especially the O-line-we should expect UW to be improved in 2026.
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A goal for the 2026 season could just be as simple as winning at least X number of games. And while that is fine, sometimes just a win/loss record doesn’t always paint a complete enough picture of how good (or not good) the team is. An 8-4 record with all of the losses being close ones to teams that end up in the CFP, would look at lot better than 8-4 with 4 blowout losses, or losses to teams when they were favored. Likewise, just having a goal of having at top XX recruiting class can be great, but doesn’t always paint a good enough picture of a recruiting class.
Are any of the goals above unrealistic? Should there just be a goal of winning more games than last season? Should the recruiting goals be higher for the 2027 class than the 2026 class? What do you think are realistic goals for 2026?
