New UA coach Jedd Fisch talks recruiting, staffing — and his meeting with Tedy Bruschi

Jedd Fisch practically shivered as he sent a video message to UA fans shortly after being hired as the Wildcats’ new football coach.

Wearing a short-sleeved UA polo shirt in the middle of a Massachusetts winter wasn’t the best decision by the former Patriots quarterbacks coach, who replaced Kevin Sumlin after three seasons.

“That’s all they sent me!” Fisch joked on Saturday. “They just sent me one collared shirt. I’m like, ‘Where’s the rest of the gear? I’m in Boston!’ We’re gonna have to change that. If we hire any coaches from the northeast, they’re getting sweatshirts sent to them. We’ll take care of that right off the bat.”

Fisch will have to make do with Arizona’s roster, which presents a number of questions following a winless season.

Fisch sought advice from Arizona legend Tedy Bruschi Saturday morning. Later on, Fisch talked to the media about his personnel plan, recruiting blueprint, memories of Arizona and his morning with the “Desert Swarm” member. Here’s some of what he said:

Are you settled in Tucson yet? Also, there has been backlash from Arizona fans about your hiring; does that bother you, and how do you plan on getting them to believe in you and the direction of the program?

A: “I’m not settled in just yet, I’m still in Foxborough. I’ll be heading to Tucson on Monday and then begin the process of moving in and entering Phase 2, which would be going from being all virtual and talking to the team virtually and talking to the coaches virtually and talking to recruits to being on campus and being able to begin the next phase of building up the staff.

“As for Part 2 (of the question), no, it hasn’t really affected me. It’s been an incredible journey and I know it’s an incredible privilege. It’s a privilege to be a head coach in the Pac-12 … so the opportunity to be a head coach is fantastic to me and I’m thrilled about it. … If you pay your dues and you work really hard and find a way to be successful, the next opportunity comes, and this is a thrilling opportunity for me.

“I can’t wait to be a part of University of Arizona football. I think you guys will be excited to see who our coaches are. I think you’ll be excited to see who wants to be a part of our program, and as we open our practices in our spring, I think everyone will feel really good about where we’re heading and what we’re gonna get done.”

With players allowed to transfer and maintain immediate eligibility this year, what’s going to be your approach with the NCAA transfer portal?

A: “In that situation right now, it’s going to be an evaluation process of our own roster. I’ve started that today and met with the recruiting department via Zoom to understand where we are as a team, understand where we are depth-wise and then there’s always going to be a situation where you’re going to try and fill your depth. You fill your depth with who’ve we signed and I think we signed about 16 or 17 guys and then we still have 10 or 11 scholarships still moving forward. With those numbers, I’ll be able to see where our depth is and what’s needed right now and then use the portal in a similar fashion as you would use free agency.”

What’s your recruiting plan?

A: “We need to focus on the state of Arizona and the neighboring states. We need to do a better job in the state first and foremost. I think there were over 57 players (in Arizona) who were signed and we didn’t sign enough of them. The starting quarterback at Oklahoma (Spencer Rattler), I recruited him when he was an eighth grader and freshman at Pinnacle High School, the starting quarterback at Oregon (Tyler Shough) — another Arizona guy. There’s too many Arizona guys slipping out. We gotta own the state and put a lockdown on the state. We gotta do a better job in Southern California. We must do a good job there and it’s too critical of a situation in that scenario. … We don’t want to start going too far away from our core and these areas, so we’ll attack Arizona and the surrounding spots.”

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Why is Arizona such a difficult place to have long-term success at?

A: “I don’t know what makes it so difficult. … If you’re winning, you can pack 51,000-52,000 people (at Arizona Stadium). The energy and excitement of a basketball program that certainly has been as successful as any over the course of time. Obviously with Coach (Lute) Olson by winning a national championship — we need to get to the successes that we had here in the ‘90s. That’s the bottom line and I don’t think there’s an easy way to answer that question other than to recognize what’s on there. There’s been some years — I know (Rich Rodriguez) had a 10-4 season, I know (Mike) Stoops) had a bunch of eight-win and nine-win seasons, and we need to find that way of having consistent winning. But we have everything we need: we have a great campus, we have great facilities, we have the opportunity of many different majors on campuses and we have a softball team, a basketball team, women’s basketball team, tennis teams — we have varsity sports that win and we need to find a way to do the same.”

What is the biggest challenge with taking over the UA football program?

A: “The fact they haven’t won as much as you’d like them to, so you have to turn over a culture. You have to change a culture from what was done to what you believe in, and when you have a 12-game losing streak, we have to end that. Before you know how to win, you have to know how to not lose. We have to teach our team how to not lose first and foremost. … If we can start educating our players on situational football and starting educating them on how to win some games by not losing them, we’ll be able to start our pitch.”

What is your best trait as a football coach?

A: “I hope my best trait is relationship-building. I work very hard at it and it’s very important to me to build a trust and respect with the players, the coaches and the people around me, and to make sure when players believe in you and trust you and like you and not want to let you down and they know you feel the same way about them, you start to build something special. When you can start building something special, you get a chance to have sustained success.”

Before you took the job at Arizona, what was your perception of the UA football program?

A: “Energy. I’ve always thought of U of A as a fun place. It’s funny, we all have certain memories of certain programs. … It was RichRod’s team that was 5-0 and you guys had (ESPN’s ‘College GameDay’) here and it was a Saturday night game and the place was going absolutely wild before the game. White towels were flying around and there was this incredible energy in the (Zona) Zoo. … I remember turning it on and thinking, ‘Wow, that looks like an incredible atmosphere.’ I applied to Arizona and considered going here when I was a college student and it was one of the few places I applied to. … But that day, energy and enthusiasm kind of reminded me of a place that understands pageantry. When I think of college football, I think of big-state universities, and I feel like we’ve gotta be one of those programs that people don’t want to play, and when they come to our place, we absolutely pack the place. It’s gotta be the most loud, relentless fan base and the energy and enthusiasm has to be incredible.”

You had breakfast with Tedy Bruschi early Saturday morning; how was that?

A: “It was great! It was awesome! Tedy came over and we had coffee. You notice we were 6 feet apart? I made that pretty clear in the picture and had to take out the tape measure to make sure we were good there for our social distancing plan. But we were able to speak about a lot of things. One of the main things was to educate me on the history of the program. I said, ‘Just talk to me. Talk to me about what it was like when you got here. Talk to me about — you were a defensive end, you were a five technique on the open side, you were a seven technique on the tight end side, what was that like? How did you get recruited? What was the defensive mentality? How did you guys become so tough and strong and physical? What are we missing? What do we need to do to bring it back? What was most important to you?’ As we continued to share, there were other things he and I talked about privately. … It was an opportunity to sit down and reconnect. I haven’t seen Tedy since I was in an airplane terminal in Jacksonville.”

What did you take away from the conversation with Bruschi?

A: “We gotta be more like them. We gotta find a way to get back to where they were. If we do that, then we have a chance.”