Here’s a look back at UW’s season through some different perspectives to see how well the Huskies did in Coach Fisch’s second year.
FEI
The FEI Ratings (Fremeau Efficiency Index) is one of the advanced statistics that gets used to rank college football teams. These rankings include an overall ranking, a ranking for offense, a ranking for defense, and one for special teams. These rankings are updated weekly during the season, and there is a ranking in the preseason as well. Since UW’s season is over, this is a good time to look back at how UW’s rankings changed since the preseason.
The graph above shows each ranking for UW (overall, offense, defense, and special teams) for each week of the season. At the top is the week number during the season (’P’ is for preseason). The numbers below the week numbers are UW’s record at that time.
UW’s overall rank improved during the non-conference portion of the schedule. They started at #32 in the preseason and moved up to #24 after their Apple Cup win. They dropped 4 places after their loss to Ohio State, but moved up again-this time to #20-before dropping again after losing to Michigan. The other notable drop was after the loss to Wisconsin, but otherwise it has been a slow, but steady climb up to their current rank: #14.
UW’s offense has been consistently in the top-25 all season. They started at #25 in the preseason and went as high as #10 after their win over Rutgers. They are currently at #18.
UW’s defense has not been as consistent. I think that most Husky fans would agree that the defense struggled a bit early in the season, especially after giving up 24 points to WSU. There was a big drop after giving up 25 points to Illinois (I’m not sure that was warranted given how good the Illini offense was), but then there steady improvement in their rank since the second ‘bye’ week. The defense’s rank even improved with the loss to Wisconsin, and did not change with the loss to Oregon. UW’s defense is ranked slightly above the offense at #17.
This makes UW one of the few teams in the top-20 in both offense and defense. Notre Dame is the only other team in the top-20 in both offense and defense that didn’t make the CFP. And, several teams in the CFP did not have both top-20 offenses and defenses like Texas Tech, Ole Miss, and Oklahoma (not to mention James Madison and Tulane).
The ranking shows that UW’s special teams improved from #97 in the preseason to #76. I think that most Husky fans would agree that UW’s special teams have improved, but that there is still a ways to go; they weren’t much of a liability, but they weren’t much of a strength either. (It looks like UW is already addressing some punting issues by bringing in a punter from the Transfer Portal.)
SP+
Bill Connelly’s SP+ is another advanced stat that is used to rank college football teams. The current SP+ rankings can be found here: https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/46128861/2025-college-football-sp+-rankings-all-136-fbs-teams
This graph starts on the left with where UW was ranked to end the 2024 season (#58) and goes to the right with the current (as of January 2, 2026) ranking (#13). This graph should be encouraging to Husky fans; the hope is that the trend will continue in 2026.
Notably, UW is ranked on SP+ above USC (#16), Texas (#17), and Alabama (#20).
SP+ also has components for offense, defense, and special teams. Here is where UW currently ranks in those:
- Offense: 22
- Defense: 9
- Special Teams: 97
Both FEI and SP+ have UW with a top-25 offense and a top-25 defense, but a below-average special teams.
Postgame Win Expectancy
Postgame Win Expectancy (PGWE) is a way to look back at a game to see how well the teams played and whether the team that won should have expected to win based on how they played. Here’s a look at UW’s PGWE for each of their games using SP+ data.
| Week | Opponent | Win? | UW Score | Opp. Score | Margin | PGWE | Adjusted Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8/30/2025 | Colorado State | 1 | 38 | 21 | 17 | 100.00% | 25.6 |
| 9/6/2025 | UC Davis | 1 | 70 | 10 | 60 | 100.00% | 43.4 |
| 9/20/2025 | Washington State | 1 | 59 | 24 | 35 | 99.90% | 22.7 |
| 9/27/2025 | Ohio State | 0 | 6 | 24 | -18 | 0.60% | -19 |
| 10/4/2025 | Maryland | 1 | 24 | 20 | 4 | 88.80% | 9.2 |
| 10/10/2025 | Rutgers | 1 | 38 | 19 | 19 | 100.00% | 25.8 |
| 10/18/2025 | Michigan | 0 | 7 | 24 | -17 | 8.10% | -10.6 |
| 10/25/2025 | Illinois | 1 | 42 | 25 | 17 | 94.10% | 11.8 |
| 11/8/2025 | Wisconsin | 0 | 10 | 13 | -3 | 85.40% | 8 |
| 11/15/2025 | Purdue | 1 | 49 | 13 | 36 | 100.00% | 43.3 |
| 11/22/2025 | UCLA | 1 | 48 | 14 | 34 | 100.00% | 37 |
| 11/29/2025 | Oregon | 0 | 14 | 26 | -12 | 14.80% | -7.9 |
| 12/13/2025 | Boise State | 1 | 38 | 10 | 28 | 100.00% | 43 |
There are a couple of things to look at here.
The first is the PGWE for each game. As you can see, UW had a 100% chance of winning in 6 of their games. That indicates that they controlled the game so that the final outcome wasn’t in doubt. There were two other games (WSU and Illinois) where UW had a greater than 90% win percentage. Again, not much doubt in those games. In three of the games that UW lost, they had less than a 15% PGWE, so unlikely that they were going to win.
The other two games are interesting. UW had a 88.8% PGWE in the Maryland game despite having to come from behind in the 4th quarter to get the win. (This should remind fans of the Rutgers game in 2024 when they had a 97.3% PGWE but lost.) The other game is the Wisconsin game. UW had a 85.4% PGWE, but obviously lost that game. I think that most Husky fans can agree that a lot of things went wrong in that game (turnovers, missed FG, penalties, etc.).
The other thing to look at is the difference between ‘Margin’ and ‘Adjusted Margin’. The ‘Margin’ is just the difference in the score in the game. The ‘Adjusted Margin’ is what the margin should have been based on how the teams played. There were some games that UW probably should have won by more based on how they played, like the bowl game against Boise State. In other games UW won by more than they should have, like the Apple Cup. It looks like UW was fairly evenly split between them.
Obviously the one problem for UW in 2025 was the game that they should have won, but ended up losing-to Wisconsin.
In-Game Win Probability
ESPN (and other places) look at the play-by-play in a game to determine who the likely winner would be at each point in the game. In some cases the win probability for a team may not change much at all during the game, like the following for the Apple Cup.
Some of the dips in that graph were when WSU scored in that game. But despite the fact that WSU kept the score close for a while, UW was playing better and then made the plays in the second half to put that game away.
The Rutgers game was one where the teams went back-and-forth in the first half; Rutgers had a greater than 50% win percentage several times in the first half, and then UW pulled away in the second half.
There was no UW game this season that had more of a swing during the game than the game at Maryland. At one point in the game Maryland had a greater than 97% win probability. But you can see in the graph that things reversed significantly in the 4th quarter.
As you can see by these examples, there were many games that UW won by playing better in the second half. They also lost a few games by playing worse in the second half; the losses to Michigan (3 INT’s) and Wisconsin are good examples.
Strength of Record
Strength of Record is a statistic that tries to rank teams based on how they did against the teams that they faced. Some teams like Wisconsin faced a daunting schedule with multiple top-25 teams. Other teams have a great win-loss record, but have faced an easy schedule. Tennessee, for example, finished 8-5 but none of those wins were against teams with a winning record (all of the losses were).
Here’s where UW’s Strength of Record ranks in a couple different rankings:
- ESPN’s FPI: 25
- FEI: 24
Summary
The advanced stats show what many Husky fans probably thought about the season:
- The Huskies improved since 2024 and improved over the course of the season-especially on defense.
- UW’s offense and defense were both very good, but their special teams, while improved over 2024, was not good enough in 2025.
- UW took care of business against most of the teams that they beat. The one exception was the Maryland game when they had to come from behind to get the win. All of their other wins were by at least 3 scores.
- While UW did lose 3 games by double-digits, they were more competitive in those games than some of the losses in 2024. In all of their losses they were down by just one score at some point in the 4th quarter in each of those games.
UW played a lot of true freshmen in 2025, and they had several key players who missed a lot of time in 2025 due to injuries. With more experience from those freshmen, plus (hopefully) improved health, Husky fans are likely hoping that the 2025 season was a good foundation and that they can improve even more in 2026.