Career comes full-circle for ex-UA assistant Canales
Early Thursday afternoon, Mike Canales walked into the football coaching offices at Utah State, and his 33-year journey through every conceivable rank of college football — through Tucson and Tampa, good and bad — had come full circle.
He was back home.
It’s one of the most fulfilling stories I’ve come across in the fickle world of college football coaching.
Canales was 42 when he was hired as Arizona’s offensive coordinator in January 2004. He was a hot ticket: former coach of North Carolina State quarterback Philip Rivers, soon wooed away to coach with the New York Jets.
Hiring the former Utah State quarterback, who cut his coaching teeth at the BYU-LaVell Edwards-Norm Chow passing factory, was considered a coup of note for new Arizona coach Mike Stoops.
In retrospect, coming to Tucson might have been the worst decision of Canales’ career.
At 42, rather than pursue an opportunity to be the offensive coordinator of the Florida Gators, Canales chose to move close to his roots, his family and children, in Utah and California. He chose to pick up the debris from the failed John Mackovic regime.
It blew up, almost predictably.
By the time Arizona recruited Pac-12-quality offensive players, including quarterback Willie Tuitama and record-setting receiver Mike Thomas, the Wildcats had gone 6-16, and Canales was the designated scapegoat.
In the second game of the 2006 season, LSU mashed Arizona 45-3, and Tuitama was concussed. He wouldn’t be the same all season. Stoops put the UA’s offensive failures on Canales and, two days after a loss to ASU, fired him.
Stoops hired Sonny Dykes, who came off as a conquering hero using the cast Canales had assembled through three trying seasons.
Canales became the offensive coordinator at South Florida, which rose to No. 2 in the nation in 2007. But he eventually lost his job when head coach Jim Leavitt was fired, accused of mistreating players.
Then Canales went to North Texas, where two head coaches, Todd Dodge and Dan McCarney, were fired for losing too much and for some off-field troubles.
At 54, Canales was out of a job. His days as an emerging star on the college football landscape were so far removed that his best job opportunities were as a receivers coach at Weber State and as an offensive analyst at Indiana. Every lead he followed fell through.
It could all be traced back to leaving the NFL for Mike Stoops’ first Arizona staff.
Finally, last week, Canales got a call from his alma mater. Utah State coach Matt Wells asked if Canales would consider being the Aggies’ assistant head coach?
Would he? In 48 hours, Canales was on a plane, en route to Logan, Utah, his career resuscitated where it began in 1980.
When I spoke to Canales on Wednesday, he was ecstatic.
“I’m going home,” he said. “After all I’ve gone through, those are the three happiest words in the world.”
