Jedd Fisch brings ‘NFL approach’ to Arizona’s expanded, restructured personnel department

With the sporting world focused on the Super Bowl, Arizona Wildcats coach Jedd Fisch is working on bringing the NFL to Tucson.

We’re not talking about an expansion team or a relocation here. We’re talking about the way Fisch is fashioning his first football “front office.”

It’s bigger. It’s streamlined. It’s modeled after the pros.

“We want to take on an NFL approach in regards to our building in general,” Fisch said. “In order to do that, we needed to compartmentalize our program.

“For our program to really be at the level that I believe we need to get to, and we need to strive to be at, there were going to have to be changes in the entire structure of how that was going to work.”

Fisch sought to clearly delineate roles for every member of the organization. While he has the final say over personnel matters as the head coach and de facto general manager, Fisch has assembled a robust personnel department and support staff that rivals those of Arizona’s peers.

It also exemplifies the growth of front offices across the sport.

“It’s a critical part to the success of college football in 2021 and beyond,” Fisch said. “The way these programs are being built and the amount of information that is available, you need to build more infrastructure.”

Fisch expressed gratitude to UA president Robert C. Robbins and athletic director Dave Heeke for giving him the financial resources to do it — especially during a time when revenues are down because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The pandemic forced the athletic department to lay off 21 employees and freeze 15 open positions late last year, in addition to other mitigation measures. But football remains the department’s biggest revenue driver, especially when fans are allowed to attend games, so it was deemed a worthwhile investment.

Fisch inherited a school-record 12-game losing streak, and attendance was declining before the pandemic struck. Arizona was falling behind its competitors in more ways than one.

Growth industry

Remember when Arizona State announced its “New Leadership Model” — with each word capitalized — in December 2017, and everyone made fun of it?

The Sun Devils were on to something.

The weird wording of the announcement had as much to do with it being ridiculed as anything. Here’s how the second paragraph read in the news release revealing Herm Edwards as ASU’s coach:

“The department’s New Leadership Model will be similar to an NFL approach using a general manager structure. It’s a collaborative approach to managing the ASU football program that includes sport and administrative divisions, which will operate as distinct but collective units focused on elevating all aspects of Sun Devil Football. This structure will allow the department to form a multilayered method to the talent evaluation and recruiting processes, increase its emphasis on both student-athlete and coach development and retention, and provide a boost in resource allocation and generation.”

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Basically, ASU did what Arizona is doing now — expand and reorganize its football front office.

Entering 2012, their first season under Edwards’ predecessor, Todd Graham, the Sun Devils listed 10 support staffers in their media guide. Today, that number totals 23. (We are not including strength coaches, equipment managers or academic advisers in this calculation.)

Arizona has experienced similar growth. The Wildcats had 14 support staffers entering Rich Rodriguez’s first season in 2012, including four graduate assistants. That numbers grew to 20 staffers entering Kevin Sumlin’s first season in 2018, including five off-field “analysts” — a position that barely existed in the sport in 2012.

Arizona currently has 24 support staffers and plans to add two more — a coordinator of college scouting and a second coordinator of on-campus recruiting.

In terms of its investment in people, Arizona is encroaching on the gold standard of college football — Alabama. The Crimson Tide list 32 support staffers in their directory, including seven analysts and two special assistants to the head coach.

Key additions

The NFL model can’t be duplicated in college because of a key difference between the two: recruiting.

But it is possible to create a structure that essentially separates the coaches from the front office. Gone are the days when an assistant coach doubled as the recruiting coordinator — assuming, that is, that the latter is still a one-person job.

Here are the five biggest additions Fisch has made to the personnel department:

• Tedy Bruschi, senior advisor to the head coach: The former UA All-American will serve in a high-profile but part-time role while continuing to live in Massachusetts and work for ESPN. His official duties include serving as a consultant for the staff and assisting Fisch in alumni relations, fundraising, social-justice initiatives and student-athlete development.
• Matt Doherty, director of player personnel: Doherty is in charge of Arizona’s personnel department. He previously served in the same capacity at Miami and as an assistant director of player personnel at North Carolina State. He crossed paths with Fisch while serving as Michigan’s recruiting coordinator in 2015.
• Matt Hayes, associate athletic director/football administration: Fisch described Hayes as his “right-hand guy” and supervisor of the operations side of the department. He is an extension of Fisch, especially in off-field matters. “If I can’t be at a meeting,” Fisch said, “Matt can be at that meeting.” Hayes has a background in business, having previously overseen business and finance operations for Nortis, a biotech company. He was director of football operations for the Seattle Dragons of the XFL in 2019.
• Ryan Partridge, coordinator of high school recruiting: Partridge is in charge of “identifying and isolating talent,” Fisch said. Partridge previously served as the linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator at Ferris State, a Division II program in Michigan. Before that, he compiled a 40-11 record as the head coach at Liberty High School in Brentwood, California. Partridge completed his collegiate playing career at NAU.
• Brandon Sanders, coordinator of football alumni and high school relations: Fisch was looking for someone similar to Hurlie Brown, with whom he worked at Miami. Like Sanders at Arizona, Brown was a standout safety for the Hurricanes. His job in 2011 and ’12 largely involved community outreach. “I said, ‘Find me that guy,’” Fisch said. “Dave Heeke came back to me and said, ‘I’ve got that guy.’ It was an awesome recommendation.” Sanders was the head coach at Pueblo High School from 2014-19.

Fisch and the UA aren’t done hiring. The coordinator of college scouting will be tasked with monitoring and assessing the NCAA transfer portal — an increasingly important and time-consuming job — as well as scouting upcoming opponents.

The overarching challenge for Fisch was to place everyone into a functional organizational flow chart. Having spent more than half of his career on NFL staffs, he knew exactly how it should look.

“What were we gonna do to make that work? We were going to design it in the same manner as the 32 teams that compete on Sundays,” Fisch said. “I feel really good about how that’s gone.”