Hansen's notebook: Arizona football's Jedd Fisch changes blueprint for top college coaches

The Star's longtime columnist also on the tight all-conference squeeze for superstar UA wideout Tetairoa McMillan, updating the championship legacies  of Canyon del Oro football and coach Dustin Peace, Arizona basketball's ascent to No. 1 and more.

Greg Hansen's Sunday Notebook is presented by Rite Way Heating, Cooling & Plumbing.

Majoring in positivity and energy, Arizona's Fisch 1 of 2 Pac-12 Coach of Year options

Of the 65 Power Five football head coaches this season, Arizona's Jedd Fisch is the only one who didn’t play high school or college football. Fisch was a tennis player at Hanover High School in New Jersey.

And yet early this week, Fisch seems to be 50-50 to be named the Pac-12 coach of the year, a two-coach showdown with Washington’s 13-0 Kalen DeBoer.

It’s a fascinating development and exhibit A that there is no one route to become a successful college coach.

DeBoer was a star receiver in high school and college, an athlete of such skill that he played one season of professional baseball. He has been a coaching lifer, starting at the University of Sioux Falls and working his way to the top from schools such as Eastern Michigan, Southern Illinois and Fresno State.

Fisch’s résumé is a 180, coaching at seven NFL franchises and for such college coaches as Steve Spurrier and Jim Harbaugh.

No matter their differences, Fisch and DeBoer were the best coaches in the Pac-12 this year, two of the best in college football. Fisch did more with less than almost any coach in the game. His long march to success is an irresistible story.

Fisch finds himself on a small list of FBS coaches who never played college football, ranging from Washington State’s Mike Leach to Auburn’s Hugh Freeze. to Arizona’s Dick Tomey and TCU’s Sonny Dykes, a former Arizona offensive coordinator.

But all of those men played high school football. (Tomey and Dykes played college baseball.) Fisch is the only Pac-12 head football coach of the last 50 years without a participatory background in the sport.

Fisch’s encyclopedic recall and ability to absorb and retain and teach what he learned at those many elite NFL and NCAA stops more than make up for his lack of ever putting on a helmet and shoulder pads.

I tell you this because I think Fisch is a game-changer in the college football industry. He is surely changing attitudes within the game toward hiring “career’’ coaches. Athletic directors and slow-to-change search firms — hiring the same-old, same-old, like Kevin Sumlin — may now be willing to look beyond the absence of playing experience, seeing advantages in employing a coach with a different background and skill set.

Among other things, Fisch’s skill set includes the highest level of clock management. What search firm even knows what that is? But when the Los Angeles Rams reached the 2019 Super Bowl, coach Sean McVay appointed Fisch as his strategic specialist, majoring in clock management, among other things.

Every week, Fisch watched the last five minutes of every half of every NFL game, concentrating on timeouts, personnel and schemes. Fisch’s expertise in that field came to bear during the final two minutes of Arizona’s down-to-the-wire victories against Stanford, Colorado and Oregon State this season.

As much as he teaches blocking and tackling, Fisch is probably ahead of the majority of his peers in being a people manager, filling his staff with high-level assistants who facilitate the development of athletes while Fisch builds a culture, elevates the experience and connects with the community.

The blueprint for Fisch’s head coach career is unlike anyone in college football.

The only active head coach at a Power Five school I could find to match Fisch’s unusual background is Wisconsin volleyball coach Kelly Sheffield, a four-time Final Four coach and 2019 NCAA champion, a Ball State graduate who did not play volleyball or any sport in high school or college.

Over the last 45 years, Arizona has produced two Pac-12 coaches of the year: Tomey, 1992, and Rich Rodriguez, 2014. You couldn’t find two men who approached the game differently. Tomey was a gentle soul, a teacher who built trust among his “family’’ of players and preached defense and field position.

RichRod was a controlling offensive specialist from the old school, loud and in-your-face, whose style of play was beat-the-clock. Defense? What’s that?

Now comes Jedd Fisch, majoring in positivity and energy, recruiting at a level unseen at Arizona, a football salesman who has gone from a 1-11 finish to No. 15 nationally in an unimaginably quick turnaround.

Fisch or DeBoer? It’s almost too close to call.

Cats' WR McMillan faces all-conference squeeze

When the Pac-12 announces its all-conference football team this week, the reality is that Arizona might just get one first-team selection: offensive tackle Jordan Morgan.

What about dynamic UA receiver Tetairoa McMillan? It’s going to be a close vote.

To its credit, the Pac-12 doesn’t inflate its all-conference football teams like, say, Pac-12 softball, which last year had a 20-woman first team.

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Historically, the Pac-12 has selected 11 offensive and defensive first-teamers. In the event of a tie vote for a particular position, the all-league team has periodically included 12 players. The last time the league elected three receivers to the first team was 2006.

One of those two WR spots this week will surely go to Washington’s Rome Odunze, who caught 77 passes for 1,336 yards in the regular season. He is a franchise player.

After that, it’s a two-for-one race between McMillan and Oregon’s Tory Franklin. Their numbers are too close to separate. T-Mac caught 80 passes for 1,242 yards; Franklin caught 77 for 1,349 in the regular season.

Since Arizona joined the league in 1978, it has become clear that making the first team as a receiver requires a special season. Only five UA receivers — Brad Anderson, 1983; Derek Hill, 1987; Dennis Northcutt, 1999; Bobby Wade, 2000, 2002; and Mike Thomas, 2007, 2008, were first-teamers.

Arizona linebacker Jacob Manu and tight end Tanner McLachlan had first-team-worthy seasons, but the Pac-12 is loaded with quality linebackers and tight ends. Remember, when the 2014 Wildcats won the Pac-12 South, winning 10 games, linebacker Scooby Wright was the only Wildcat to make the first team.

Canyon del Oro's Peace joins prep football legends

Canyon del Oro High School football coach Dusty Peace was a coaching pup, 27, when he guided the Dorados to the 2009 state championship. The only younger man to coach a Tucson team to a state football championship was 25-year-old Pop McKale, coaching Tucson High to the 1912 title..

So when Peace won title No. 2 on Friday, he came across as something of an old-timer, at 41. The “younger’’ coaches from Tucson to win a state football championship are part of a list of legends: THS’ Rollin Gridley was 34 when the Badgers won it all in 1937; his successor, Red Greer, was 39 when THS won the title in 1951; Jerry Loper was 36 when he built Amphitheater into a state power in 1975; and CDO’s Bob Smith was 30 when he coached the Dorados to the 1976 championship.

Most of Tucson’s state football championship coaches have been 40-plus: Palo Verde’s Van Howe was 65 in 1973. Mountain View’s Wayne Jones was 54 in 1993; Palo Verde’s Todd Mayfield was 52 in 2005; Salpointe’s Dennis Bene was 48 in 2013.

Is today’s high school football a game for younger coaches? Sabino’s Ryan McBrayer, who won it all for the Sabercats a week ago, is just 34. But McBrayer is an outlier. Two of Tucson heavyweight prep football coaches, Mica Mountain’s Pat Nugent, 55, and Ironwood Ridge’s Dale Stott, 66, are at the top of their games.

It’s not about age. It’s about commitment and expertise, and Tucson prep football is blessed with such coaches in every age group.

Short stuff: UA football's TV viewership; CDO's Greer vs. other college prospects

• According to Sports Media Watch, Arizona’s football games this season were watched by a cumulative TV audience of 5.2 million viewers, the smallest such audience in the Pac-12. That’s mostly because seven games were on the obscure Pac-12 Networks. But even at that, only 704,000 watched the UA-ASU game on ESPN. By comparison, Colorado’s total TV viewership this season was a colossal 53.9 million, followed in the Pac-12 by USC’s 33.9 million and Oregon’s 33.8 million (not including the Pac-12 title game). Even ASU outdrew Arizona, with a total audience of 7.2 million. Perhaps Arizona’s exposure will multiply several times next season in the Big 12 when it figures to be a preseason favorite with Utah and Kansas State. ...

• Palo Verde High School grad Bryce Cotton continues his remarkable pro career. He leads the Australian NBL pro league with a 21.7 scoring average. He scored 41 Friday for the Perth Wildcats in a victory over Sydney. Cotton, 31, who was an All-Big East player at Providence, is teammates with ex-Arizona Wildcat Keanu Pinder, who is averaging 12 points per game. ...

• In his 10th season as head coach of the Golden State Warriors, coach Steve Kerr’s salary is $9.5 million per year. That’s fourth among NBA coaches, behind San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich, $16 million, Detroit’s Monty Williams, $13 million, and Denver’s Mike Malone, $11.5 million. But a better perspective is that, according to Sportico and Sportrac, 167 NBA players make more than Kerr, with Warriors guard Steph Curry on top at $51.9 million. ...

• One of the lead reasons CDO went 14-0 and won the state championship last week was that junior edge rusher Evan Greer had statistics superior to those of five-star Salpointe Catholic edge rusher Elijah Rushing. Through 13 games, Greer had 30½ tackles for loss; Rushing had 17. Both had 13 sacks. The difference in their recruiting profiles is that Greer is 6-feet, 200 pounds. Rushing is about 6-5, 245.

My two cents: It's been a decade, but No. 1 not new for Arizona hoops

Arizona seems likely to rise to No. 1 in the AP men’s basketball poll on Monday. If so, it would be the seventh season in which the Wildcats have reached No. 1. It spent 34 total weeks at No. 1 over those six seasons.

What happened in those years? Here’s the roll-call:

• 1987-88: Became No. 1 on Dec. 21. Spent six total weeks at No. 1. Fell from No. 1 after losing 61-59 at unranked New Mexico and then later in the season 82-74 at unranked Stanford. NCAAs: Lost in Final Four (national semifinal).

• 1988-89: Became No. 1 on Feb. 6. Spent four total weeks at No. 1. Fell from No. 1 after losing 82-80 at No. 5 Oklahoma. NCAAs: Lost in Sweet 16.

• 1997-98: Became No. 1 on Nov. 17, the year’s first poll. Spent two weeks at No. 1. Fell from No. 1 after losing to No. 3 Duke 95-87. NCAAs: Lost in Elite 8.

• 2000-01: Became No. 1 on Nov. 13, the year’s first poll. Spent two weeks at No. 1. Fell from No. 1 after losing 72-69 at unranked Purdue. NCAAs: Lost in Final Four (national title game).

• 2002-03: Became No. 1 on Nov. 18, the year’s first poll. Spent 12 weeks at No. 1, losing three times as the top-ranked team. Fell from No. 1 after losing 66-65 at unranked LSU, 82-77 at unranked Stanford and then 96-89 to UCLA in the Pac-12 Tournament. NCAAs: Lost in Elite 8.

• 2013-14: Became No. 1 on Dec. 9. Spent eight weeks at No. 1. Fell from No. 1 after losing 60-58 at Cal. NCAAs: Lost in Elite 8.

The Wildcats were last ranked No. 1 on Feb. 1, 2014, when Cal’s Justin Cobbs swished a 3-pointer with 0.9 seconds left, breaking a 20-0 Arizona streak to open the season.

Whatever the outcome, No. 1 is cherished turf. Bring it on.