Arizona’s Jedd Fisch vouches for coaching staff before contract extension

No. 14 Arizona football coach Jedd Fisch is reportedly in talks with the university for a contract extension, but he made it clear he wants to get his coaching staff taken care of first.

Fisch is in Year 3 leading the program, which has seen a dramatic turnaround under his watch. The Wildcats went 4-13 under Kevin Sumlin from 2019-20 and 1-11 in Fisch’s debut season.

Arizona improved to 5-7 last year and jumped up to 9-3 in 2023 with a bowl game left to play.

“All the assistant coaches, we’ll try to compensate them accordingly,” Fisch told reporters on Monday. “We understand it is a very competitive atmosphere out there in this profession. The most important part of my contract is that our salary pool for our assistant coaches continues to increase and that we’re able to keep our staff in check. It has been very, very important, the consistency of our staff which has enabled us to win.

“Before I worry about myself, I wanna make sure we take care of them.”

Brennan Carroll has been Fisch’s offensive coordinator all three years, while defensive coordinator Johnny Nansen is in his second season. Passing game coordinator/quarterbacks coach Jimmie Dougherty and special teams coordinator/tight ends coach Jordan Paopao have also worked under Fisch each season in Tucson.

Arizona had the No. 24 scoring offense in FBS at 34.3 points per game. The defense’s improvement has been stark, stepping up from 36.5 points per game allowed to the FBS’ No. 27 scoring defense at 20.27 points per game.

“We’re in a good spot, we have won 11 out of our last 15 games played,” Fisch said. “We’ve found a way to continue to improve each week, we improved in the offseason, we improved in the winter, we improved in the spring, we kept adding talent, we kept developing talent, we kept getting bigger, stronger, faster … I think we’ll be better next year than were are this year. I would hope that our team is just getting started.”

When asked about an extension after Arizona’s 59-23 Territorial Cup win over Arizona State, Fisch said it sounded good to him.

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