Tag: Jedd Fisch

USC will not face Noah Fifita and Tetairoa McMillan at Washington next year

USC won’t have to play Noah Fifita or Tetairoa McMillan in 2024 as members of the Washington Huskies. That’s #B1G.

Arizona Wildcat football fans have a lot to celebrate today. The Pac-12 Freshman Offensive Player of the Year, quarterback Noah Fifita, and sophomore Second Team All-Pac-12 selection Tetairoa McMillan will be returning to Tucson to play for new head coach Brent Brennan in 2024. Fifita and McMillan explain in a tweet below from Arizona Football, “Tucson we have unfinished business. We runnin’ it back!”

This means that Trojan fans, Lincoln Riley, and D’Anton Lynn might also be celebrating today with the Wildcats. These prime Arizona players will not follow Jedd Fisch, the head coach who recruited them both out of Servite High School in Anaheim, to Washington next season. USC is scheduled to play its (soon-to-be) former Pac-12 opponent in a conference game in the Big Ten on November 2, 2024, in Seattle.

247Sports shared a conversation with Les Fifita, Noah’s father, in which he explains that McMillan and his son had thoughts of leaving, but it was not where everyone was expecting.

“We’ve known Kalen DeBoer for a long time and he loved Noah when he was at Fresno State,” [Les Fifita] said. “He recruited him hard when Noah was at Servite and they wanted both boys at Alabama.

“It’s ’Bama, we had to listen. But, end of the day, both kids felt like they had unfinished business here. Plus, it’s a family here — it really is. We want to keep this thing together and we know the whole team couldn’t go to ’Bama just like the whole team wasn’t being recruited to Washington. This is the best move for everyone and, with Noah and TMac and the core staying, we think we got a great shot to keep everyone else here as well.”

The Wildcats have their dynamic passing duo back for their first year in the Big 12. Fisch will continue to search for a replacement for Heisman runner-up Michael Penix, who is off to the NFL, and Will Rogers, the transfer from Mississippi State who entered the portal again when DeBoer left Washington. Most importantly, the Trojans will not face the trio of Fisch, Fifita and McMillan in 2024, a combination that took USC and Riley to triple overtime last October in the Coliseum.

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Arizona hires Brent Brennan to be next head coach

The Arizona Wildcats will hire former San Jose State head coach Brent Brennan to be their next head coach. The move comes following Jedd Fisch leaving Arizona to take the Washington Huskies head coach opening.

The Arizona Wildcats have agreed to a deal to make former San Jose State head coach Brent Brennan their next head coach.

Brennan and Arizona have reportedly agreed to a five-year contract, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel. He will become Arizona’s next head coach following the exit of Jedd Fisch, who took the Washington Huskies’ head coach opening Sunday.

Brennan spent seven years as the head coach at San Jose State, where he finished with a 34-48 record and a 0-3 record in Bowl Games. He led the Spartans to back-to-back winning seasons in his last two seasons.

His best season with San Jose State was a 7-1 finish in the shortened 2020 season.

Brennan has ties to the Arizona program with his brother Brad Brennan playing for the Wildcats from 1996-2000.

The Wildcats are coming off a 10-3 finish in 2023 capped off with a win in the Alamo Bowl. The record marked Arizona’s first 10-win season since 2014.

Brennan and the Wildcats got a major boost Tuesday as CBS Sports insider Dennis Dodd reported that quarterback Noah Fifita, the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, and wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, an All-Pac 12 Second Team honoree would stay at Arizona as the program transitions to the Big 12.

Pete Carroll’s son Brennan Carroll is Arizona OC, but will not be Jedd Fisch’s replacement in Tucson

Pete Carroll’s son was a prominent name in the Arizona head coaching search, but another candidate got the job instead.

It was never likely that Pete Carroll would actually be hired by the Arizona Wildcats for their football head coach position. However, Carroll’s son, Brennan, is still the offensive coordinator in Tucson. He was being considered for the vacancy left by Jedd Fisch, who left for the University of Washington.

Brent Brennan, the head coach at San Jose State, was always a likely candidate for the Arizona job alongside Brennan Carroll. Who else might have Arizona considered? That was an open question. In the meantime, though, the Wildcats moved quickly and got a big-time hire.

Brent Brennan’s hire was reported by ESPN’s Pete Thamel on Tuesday morning.

We will soon see if Brennan is someone who can prevent Jedd Fisch from taking U of A players with him to Seattle. Brennan will try to retain players from the roster and give the Wildcats a chance to compete with Utah for the 2024 Big 12 title.

See what people are saying about this unexpected job opening in the coaching carousel, right before Brent Brennan got hired by Arizona:

Arizona fans are angry, Washington fans elated about Jedd Fisch’s big decision

Jedd Fisch had everything set up for a huge year at Arizona in 2024. He still left for Washington. Emotions are raw.

Arizona football was set up for a big year in 2024 in the Big 12 Conference. The Wildcats have a lot of NFL-level talent Jedd Fisch has assembled from the recruiting trail and the transfer portal. That talent came together in 2023 and was largely coming back in 2024.

Ironically enough, the situation Arizona would have faced in 2024 with Jedd Fisch in Tucson was going to be very similar to the situation Kalen DeBoer had at Washington in 2023. A lot of good, talented players were going to come back for the following season and give the team a chance to do something special.

The big difference: DeBoer stayed at Washington in 2023 instead of chasing another job. Fisch didn’t stay at Arizona for 2024. He passed up the chance to coach a team which had the ability to win big.

Fisch might bring a lot of his Arizona players with him to Washington, but as of right now, we don’t know how all of this will play out. Here are some reactions from both the Arizona and Washington football fan bases after a seismic move which has shaken up college football in the West:

SJSU’s Brent Brennan linked to Arizona head coach vacancy

Could Brent Brennan leave SJSU for Arizona? A look inside.

Will head coach Jedd Fisch’s departure from Arizona to Washington result in San Jose State football head coach Brent Brennan heading to Tuscon?

That’s the question that’s on the mind of Spartan Nation.

According to Wildcat Authority ($) Brennan and Arizona officials have had “preliminary contact” about him becoming the next Wildcats head coach.

This makes a lot of sense that these two are talking. This is not the first time that Brennan and Arizona have flirted in a similar situation. It was just a few years ago, after SJSU won the 2020 Mountain West Championship when Brennan was a finalist for the Arizona job before Fisch was named the head coach.

Then it was less than two months ago when Brennan was a finalist for the Oregon State job before the Beavers went with defensive coordinator Trent Bray to replace then-head coach Jonathan Smith who left for Michigan State.

Wedged between those two instances was 2022 when Brennan interviewed for Stanford’s head coaching vacancy before it went to Troy Taylor.

Brennan’s made it clear SJSU isn’t a long-term plan. So is this when he succeeds in taking that step up to the Power Five?

After all, the seventh-year SJSU head coach has the impressive track record of being the only skipper to lead the Spartans to three bowl games. He did so with a meager operating budget and laughably outdated facilities until last summer.

Although it may not be a deciding factor, it’s worth noting he was a graduate assistant under Dick Tomey at U of A in 1999. But Brennan’s ties ran even deeper with OSU — he coached receivers there from 2011-16 — and still lost out.

The reason why Brennan lost out then, could be why he loses out now.

OSU went with Bray, who had zero head coaching experience, for the sake of continuity and ambition to prevent a mass transfer portal exodus. This time around, U of A could do the same with its offensive coordinator Brennan Carroll who has no head coaching experience.

So what will be the difference? As opposed to the OSU scenario, the Wildcats don’t have the pressure of an upcoming bowl game and may feel it’s worth risking continuity and an exodus for a coach with a proven track record.

If it’s not Carroll, perhaps U of A goes with Brennan over UNLV head coach Barry Odom (one year of head coaching experience) and Texas State head coach GJ Kinne (one year of head coaching experience). Or Air Force’s Troy Calhoun, Liberty’s Jamey Chadwell and Washington State’s Jake Dickert.

Considering what Brennan accomplished at SJSU, he could be fit to continue the Wildcats’ rebuild as they head from the formerly known Pac-12 to the Big 12. After going 10-31 from 2019-22, Arizona went 10-3 in 2023 and capped the season with a 38-24 win over Oklahoma in the Alamo Bowl.

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This article was updated at 11:49 am PST

Social media reacts to Jedd Fisch leaving Arizona for Washington

The Big 12-bound Arizona Wildcats watched their head coach leave for Washington

The college football and NFL coaching cycles have been extremely busy this month. Nick Saban retired, and Alabama wasted no time in hiring Kalen DeBoer, who just coached Washington in the College Football Playoff National Championship game a week ago.

Then, Washington wasted no time and hired Jedd Fisch, the Arizona Wildcats head coach, to replace DeBoer. Fisch departing Arizona to go to Washington is a big move, and the Wildcats are in for another coaching search after going 10-3 this past season.

Fisch leaving the Big 12-bound Wildcats for the Big Ten-bound Huskies is great news for Colorado, as Arizona likely won’t be as competitive next season.

Fans on social media were quick to react to the news of Fisch joining the Huskies.

Oregon OC Will Stein mentioned as candidate for Arizona coaching job

Oregon Ducks offensive coordinator Will Stein has been mentioned as a candidate for the Arizona Wildcats’ head coaching job.

At the end of the 2022 season, Oregon Duck fans saw offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham leave Eugene to take a head coaching job in the state of Arizona. A year later, it looks like history has a chance to repeat itself.

While Dillingham left to take over the Arizona State Sundevils, the last 24 hours have seen current Oregon OC Will Stein have his name mentioned as a candidate for the open Arizona Wildcats job.

A string of events has led to this. Nick Saban’s retirement led to Washington’s HC Kalen DeBoer leaving for Alabama, which led Arizona HC Jedd Fisch to leave for Washington. Now the Wildcats are looking for someone to take over their top job. According to On3, Stein could be a good option.

The 34-year-old former Louisville quarterback’s rise has been fairly meteoric, and it would be interesting to have the last two Oregon OCs coaching the two sides of the Territorial Cup rivalry. (Stein’s predecessor at Oregon was current Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham.) Stein is originally from Kentucky, but he learned to coach in Texas. After joining former Cardinals coach Charlie Strong for a year at Texas, Stein worked at Lake Travis High in Austin before joining Jeff Traylor’s UTSA staff. Stein’s recruiting connections in the Lone Star State are excellent, which would be big for a new Big 12 program.

On3 isn’t the only major publication to list Stein as a potential candidate for the job. The Athletic also put out a list with Orego’s offensive coordinator as one of the names to watch:

Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein, 34, is another intriguing name to keep an eye on. The former Louisville QB, who later was a Texas high school coach, has had a fast rise in going from UTSA offensive coordinator to a big debut season at Oregon in 2023. His Ducks offense was No. 2 in the nation in yards per play.

While Stein is certainly a strong candidate with his offensive success at Oregon and his strong recruiting ties in the Big 12 base, mainly Texas, it’s fair to say that there are other candidates who will likely be at the top of the list for the Wildcats.

We will see over the coming days who Arizona chooses to replace Fisch, but it will likely happen relatively quickly.

 

University of Washington hires Arizona’s Jedd Fisch

Jedd Fisch is leaving Arizona for the Washington Huskies

The University of Washington has its head football coach: Jedd Fisch.

Fisch comes to the Huskies from the University of Arizona, which was in the Pac-12 with Washington.

However, next college football season neither will be in the same conference.

Fisch was 16-21 in three seasons as head coach of the Wildcats. However, that doesn’t tell the story.

In his first two seasons, he was 6-18.

The Arizona program saw a huge turnaround in 2023 winning 10 of 13 games.

it was Arizona’s first 10-win season since 2014.

Fisch replaces Kalen DeBoer, who took the Alabama job after Nick Saban retired.

Arizona is headed to the Big 12 as college sports realigns. Washington will be on its way to the Big 10.

Who is most likely to take over as the next head coach for the Washington Huskies?

A look at who the most likely candidates might be for the next head coach of the Washington Huskies after Kalen DeBoer’s departure.

We normally try not to concern ourselves with the coaching hires of other teams, but when it’s happening at a school that directly affects the Oregon Ducks, we’re going to take notice.

That obviously was the case earlier this week when the Alabama Crimson Tide were looking to replace Nick Saban — a hire that we were right on from the very start — and it is the case once again as the Washington Huskies look to replace Kalen DeBoer, who took his talents south to Tuscaloosa for the 2024 season.

The Huskies need to make a big-time hire, but the odds may be stacked against them. Many of the best players from the Pac-12 championship team in 2023 have announced they are heading to the NFL this offseason. A handful of others have entered the transfer portal. On top of that, Washington is now late to board the coaching carousel in college football. While the job could be big enough to lure top coaches from other schools, it will not exactly be easy. Washington is headed to the Big Ten next season, and the cupboards are looking relatively bare.

So who ultimately might the Huskies be able to land? These are a few candidates that we are hearing are in the running:

No. 12 Oklahoma vs. No. 14 Arizona Wildcats: Sooners Wire staff predictions

The Oklahoma Sooners take on the Arizona Wildcats in the Alamo Bowl. Sooners Wire staff predicts the final game of 2023.

The [autotag]Jackson Arnold[/autotag] era has officially begun in Norman, Oklahoma. He’ll make the first start of Sooners’ career in the Alamo Bowl when the Sooners take on one of the hottest teams in the country, the Arizona Wildcats.

On paper, this looks like an even matchup between two teams that rank inside the top 50 on both sides of the ball.

Like Oklahoma, the Wildcats will start a freshman at quarterback, Noah Fifita. He’s played really well in 2023 and is a big reason Arizona is on the verge of a 10-win season.

To get you ready for the 2023 Valero [autotag]Alamo Bowl[/autotag], here are our final Sooners Wire staff predictions for the 2023 season.