College Football Coach Hire Grades: Arizona

Arizona Wildcats: Brent Brennan

Why the job was open: Arizona is a program that has long struggled to find football success for a consistent period of time and it didn’t make sense. There’s a lot of talent in the state, lots of talent nearby in California/Texas and they’re in a desirable location (beautiful Tucson, Arizona). Jeff Fisch finally started to unlock that potential and it all came together with an incredible finish to their 2023 season. Arizona was locked and loaded ready for a special 2024 season but as a result of the Nick Saban retiring domino, Fisch ended up leaving for the Washington job. He may have also left to avoid other issues, more on that later.

Coach Profile: Brent Brennan is a first cousin to Hawaii legend Colt Brennan (RIP.) He spent the early portion of his career as an assistant, notably spending a lot of time with a coach Arizona is familiar with, Dick Tomey. Brennan spent a lot of time with receivers in his assistant days, coaching some notable ones like James Jones and Brandin Cooks. Brennan was the head coach at San Jose State starting in 2017, the program was in rough shape when he took over but he turned them around. His 2020 season was the biggest highlight, despite challenging regulations in California they went 6-0 in the regular season, won the Mountain West and even spent time in the College Football Playoff rankings. Injuries led to a slide in 2021 but in 2022 and 2023 he got San Jose State back to bowl games, their first back to back appearances since the 1980s. Last season they rallied after a challenging early schedule and 1-5 start to finish in a 3 way tie atop the Mountain West standings, alas the Spartans were the odd men out.

Why he will succeed: This isn’t a rebuild, the foundation has already been built for Arizona to be one of the best football programs in the Big 12. Brennan already has the pieces in place for a positive beginning to his time here and he seems poised to bring in and talent great talent. Brennan showed he can be a good coach when he was at San Jose State and has long been considered a guy ready for this step.

What obstacles are in the way of success: There’s some unique ones. Arizona athletics are facing a MASSIVE budget deficit of MILLIONS of dollars thanks to an alleged error. This led to a complete house cleaning, including the AD that hired Brennan getting fired 2 weeks after the hiring, how does that even happen? Needless to say there’s unprecedented levels of dysfunction going on, how will this impact Brennan’s tenure in the long term?

Grade: B – This hire is just very solid. It’s not flashy, not a steal but makes perfect sense. Brennan is a coach on the rise who knows how to coach out west and he won early by keeping some star players on a very good roster.