It hasn’t been a great six months for the Arizona Wildcats. Despite the news that the University would be moving to a new conference along with Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah.
In recent months it has been reported that UA miscalculated their budget by $240 million. It could be a huge indicator of why they were unable to extend Jedd Fisch and he ultimately left for the Washington Huskies.
According to multiple reports including Action Network’s Brett McMurphy, Heeke was fired for “financial & operational mismanagement, resulting in an athletic department financial ‘disaster,’ loss of major donors & mishandling of former coach Jedd Fisch’s contract.”
Arizona AD Dave Heeke was fired for "financial & operational mismanagement, resulting in an athletic department financial 'disaster,' loss of major donors & mishandling of former coach Jedd Fisch's contract," sources told @ActionNetworkHQ. Heeke hired new football coach Brent…
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) January 23, 2024
The last act as athletic director for Dave Heeke was the hiring of former San Jose State head coach Brent Brennan to run the Wildcats program. Brennan played for UCLA from 1993 to 1994. He joined the Wildcats staff as a graduate assistant in 2000 before taking on a larger role with Cal Poly in 2001. Brennan was part of the San Jose State staff from 2005 to 2010 and returned as head coach in 2017.
He is 0-3 in bowl games and 34-48 overall in seven seasons. Perhaps this was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Heeke as far as the administration was concerned. Mike Candrea will be the acting AD in the meantime per 247Sports’ Jason Scheer.