Cats' staff intact as spring ball nears
The first of Arizona’s 14 spring football practices will be held Wednesday in what has been a surprisingly drama-free Pac-12 offseason.
Rich Rodriguez brings back his entire coaching staff from 2014, which hasn’t happened at Arizona since 2003-04, and rarely happens anywhere in the fluid Power 5 conferences.
In fact, five Pac-12 teams return their entire nine-man coaching staffs from 2014 — Stanford, ASU, Washington, Oregon and Arizona. Why? A lot of it is that the salary market has become so attractive, with position coaches routinely making in excess of $200,000, that climbing the ladder strictly to get a raise has diminished.
The not-so-subtle change in the coaching industry is the addition of “analysts” to ever-growing college staffs. Following Alabama’s lead — the Crimson Tide has eight analysts on staff — the UA has hired intern/graduate assistants Jahmile Addae and Miguel Reveles as full-time analysts.
It’s the same everywhere in the Pac-12. ASU gave ex-GA Matt Butterfield a full-time job and a title of “senior associate offensive analyst.” Colorado uses a different term. It hired Omar Young as “director of quality control.” USC hired two full-time “recruiting analysts.”
Reveles and Addae are valuable in the UA’s recruiting structure. Both are in their 20s and relate well to high school prospects. And their communication skills allow veteran position coaches to spend more time on game preparation, evaluation, player development and coaching.
It’s not like these are pure entry-level jobs, either. Addae was the running backs coach at Cincinnati in 2010 and 2011. Before ASU hired Butterfield, he spent seven years in the Pac-12 in various capacities of football operations.
College football is a growth business. Coaching staffs at Arizona and in the Pac-12 reflect that.
