Babers is gone, Akina and Gonzales will have new roles
It will still be the same person in charge of the overall program, but Arizona’s 2025 team will have people calling the shots on offense, defense and special teams.
UA coach Brent Brennan announced Thursday that he is replacing all three coordinators after one season. Offensive coordinator Dino Babers will not return to the program, while defensive coordinator Duane Akina will return to coaching the secondary and special teams coordinator Danny Gonzales (who also coached linebackers) will move into a yet-to-be-determined role.
“It’s always my job to exhaust all options and all possibilities and do whatever we have to do to give us a chance to play the best football we can here at Arizona,” Brennan said. “This is a result-oriented business, and there’s a there’s a fine line there between like seeing the value in what they bring, because they’re outstanding coaches, and I think we all know that. But what we were doing was obviously not working.”
Arizona is coming off a 4-8 season in which it ranked 98th in FBS in total offense, 115th in scoring and 120th in rushing. The defense, which saw all three captains suffer season-ending knee injuries, ranked 98th against the run, 102nd against the pass, 109th in yards per game and 110th in points per game.
Brennan said having Babers return for a second stint at Arizona—he was at the school from 1995-2000—was “always a 1-year deal.” Babers, who had been head coach at Syrcause the previous eight seasons, was the only member of the Wildcats’ coaching staff not to sign a 2-year contract when hired earlier this year.
The decision to change defensive coordinators, Brennan said, was rooted in maximizing Akina’s impact on the program. The longtime secondary coach, who is also in his second stint with the Wildcats after coaching there from 1987-2000, has produced three winners of the Thorpe Award (given to college football’s top defensive back) and several more finalists.
“He’s going to go back to producing NFL defensive backs, where we get the value of his experience,” Brennan said of Akina. “No one’s better at teaching and coaching the secondary than he is, and so I think that’s going to be incredibly valuable for us.”
Brennan said he plans to hire a full-time special teams coordinator after having Gonzales split time between that and his defensive position coaching. In hindsight, he said, that wasn’t ideal.
“I think it gets complicated when people are either an offensive coach or a defensive coach and trying to also coach a kicking game,” he said. “And so I’m looking for someone that is just narrowly focused on that.”
Asked about what he’s looking for in an offensive coordinator, Brennan said he’s looking for an “explosive” attack and is focused on play callers with a track record of coordinating both the run and pass games. And, most importantly, someone who can return quarterback Noah Fifita to the form he had in 2023 when he was Pac-12 Offensive Freshman of the Year.
“How do we help him elevate his game, because we know when that happens that will help us elevate ours,” Brennan said.
Brennan noted that Fifita “has every intention of returning” to Arizona in 2025, stating that the two met on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
“Every conversation I’ve had with Noah has been really positive about him coming back,” Brennan said. “He still has not made that announcement public. He’s taken some time to just step away. Obviously the season was challenging on every level, and no one wears that burden heavier than Noah Fifita does. So he’s just taking a break. He has every intention of returning, but I think who we hire here is going to have impact on that, like he has to be excited about the person we bring in to be the play caller.”
On defense, Brennan is seeking a coordinator who is comfortable working out of multiple formations, is aggressive and uses both man and zone coverage. And while his offensive coordinator will come from outside the program the DC may be on the current staff, as Gonzales was defensive coordinator at San Diego State in 2017 (and ranked 11th nationally in total defense) and in 2018-19 at ASU before spending four seasons as New Mexico head coach.
“Danny is an outstanding coach, and I absolutely think extremely highly of him,” Brennan said. “We may end up going down that path, but in the short term I gotta look at everything I can. And so I’m looking outside the program, trying to find what I think is the best fit with the pieces we have in the coaching staff that we have in place, and trying to bring all those things together and give us chance play better defense than we did this year.
“And as we do that, as we look at the possibilities that are out there, it doesn’t mean that we won’t end up taking into consideration Danny’s track record as a defensive play caller also.”
Arizona just signed its 2025 recruiting class on Wednesday but an even bigger date is on the horizon with the NCAA transfer portal opening Monday. That would seem to make getting those hires in place before them a priority. Brennan said he wants to hire as soon as possible, but not at the risk of missing out on the best options.
“Obviously there’s urgency to get that done, just with the the intentions of working on roster retention and also getting moving on the transfer portal as that opens next week,” Brennan said. “Those conversations have started, and I’m hoping to move down to a short list that we can get some interviews going very quickly the next couple days. Some of the people that we’re talking to are playing games this weekend.
“The most important thing is that I am diligent about this process, and I find the best person to bring in here for Arizona football, and I’m trying to do it on an accelerated timeline, but I also understand that the portal is going to be open for a good stretch there, and we can get done whenever we need to get done.”
Brennan said he’s talking with athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois “three times a day” since the season ended as they work together to improve the staff.
“She’s been great, I think that part of it is you want to work in alignment with your athletic director,” he said. “It’s an ongoing discussion, we’re going through candidates, talking about who the possibilities might be, and she’s bouncing stuff back and forth off of me and vice versa. And so it’s been really positive.”