Wildcats football coach Jedd Fisch ready to build ‘culture of competition’

New Arizona football head coach Jedd Fisch is ready to take the reins of the program — and never see a 70-7 beatdown of the Wildcats again.

“That’s not ok. We can’t allow that to ever happen again,” Fisch told Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo on Wednesday. “Our job is to go out there and have a culture of competition.

“We want to compete our tails off every time we walk onto the field and with that, we need to make sure we do a good job of building the program the way we want, shaping the roster the way we need to and then, bringing in some great football coaches.”

For Fisch, the biggest need on his staff is for fellow coaches who will work with him to bring success to a team that hasn’t had a winning season since 2017.

“[It’s] very important for everybody to be rowing the boat in the same way and for everybody to be working together to achieve the successes that we hope to have,” he said.

A report by Yahoo Sports’ Pete Thamel says the new head coach plans to add former Wildcats and College Football Hall of Famers Chuck Cecil and Ricky Hunley as assistants on his staff, though nothing official has been announced by the school.

While looking for coaches to fill his staff, Fisch has also been looking at the Wildcats’ legacy, such as the 12-1 1998 team led by Dick Tomey and the victories under Larry Smith.

“When you’re able to listen and hear about what this program once was, we’re not that far off. … we’re right there,” he said. “We’re going to try to find a way to get there again and to really do a nice job to be able to bring this thing back.”

Part of revitalizing the team will include recruiting efforts, which the head coach feels confident about due to his previous experience on various coaching staffs and teams.

He wants to not only be searching for players along the West Coast, but establish relationships with local high school coaches to try and keep the best of Arizona’s talent in state.

“Its starts with the foundation of our program,” Fisch said. “It starts with us being able to make sure everyone in our program understands that we need to make sure we respect the game of football, we work extremely hard at becoming great at what we want to accomplish and we also have to be accountable to one another.”

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