Arizona hires 'innovative offensive mind' Seth Doege as OC

Arizona has found its next offensive play-caller.

Seth Doege, the offensive coordinator at Marshall, was hired by the UA late Thursday night for a similar role. Arizona officially announced the addition of Doege Friday morning.

Doege joins Arizona after one season as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Marshall, which recently claimed its first-ever Sun Belt Conference championship and won 10 games for the first time since 2015.

“We are really excited to welcome Seth and his family to Tucson,” Arizona head coach Brent Brennan said in a released statement. “Seth is a young, innovative offensive mind whose experience as a player and coach will bring value to our offense and coaching staff. ... Doege has worked with some of the best offensive minds in college football and Doege has deep ties to Texas and California, which are two of our biggest recruiting areas.”

During his introductory press conference on Friday, Brennan said “a handful” of coaches were interviewed for the position — three of them had on-campus interviews.

Doege said he’s “excited to be here” and the move to Tucson “was easy.”

“From the moment I stepped off the plane, to the moment I got home, it just felt right,” he said.

Added Doege: “I think there’s a standard of offensive play, that bar people like Nick Foles have set around here. It’s time to bring that back. I’m very excited to do that. ... I’m very excited to be back in the Big 12. I’m really grateful for Coach Brennan for believing in me. ... It’s time to go make this thing right.”

The Wildcats’ new offensive play-caller is an “Air Raid” disciple and protégé of the late Mike Leach, who Doege played for at Texas Tech.

Following a standout career at Crane High School in San Angelo, Texas, Doege (pronounced DAY-ghee) played five years at Texas Tech under Leach. Doege was officially hired on the two-year anniversary of Leach’s death.

Doege was the Red Raiders’ starting quarterback in 2011 and ’12. In four seasons at TTU, Doege passed for 8,636 yards, 69 touchdowns and 26 interceptions with a 69% completion rate. Doege set the FBS record for highest single-game completion percentage with 40 or more completions, completing 40 of 44 passes (90.9%) against New Mexico in 2011.

Doege finished his senior season third in college football in passing yards (4,205) and second in touchdown passes (39). Doege is fourth in Texas Tech history in career passing yards behind Graham Harrell, Kliff Kingsbury and Patrick Mahomes.

After his college career, Doege signed with the Atlanta Falcons as an undrafted free agent in 2013. He was waived before the season but joined the practice squad before playing two seasons in the CFL with the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

The soon-to-be 36-year-old Doege began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Bowling Green under head coach Mike Jinks in 2016. When Jinks became the running backs coach at USC, Doege was hired as an offensive quality control coach from 2019-20.

In 2022, Doege was hired by Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss for an offensive analyst role, before he was Purdue’s tight ends coach in 2023. Doege joined Charles Huff’s staff at Marshall as an offensive coordinator.

In Doege’s lone season with the Thundering Herd, Marshall ranked 71st in college football in yards per game — 40th in scoring offense, averaging 31.8 points per contest. Marshall’s quarterbacks combined for 27 touchdowns and only four interceptions this season. Marshall starting quarterback Braylon Braxton finished the season 39th nationally with 19 touchdown passes. After passing for 1,431 yards and 17 touchdowns, Braxton was named Sun Belt Conference Newcomer of the Year.

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The Thundering Herd had a balanced offensive attack with 2,354 passing yards and 2,622 rushing yards. Doege described his offense as “efficient” and “flexible to personnel.”

“My brand of football, as you’ve seen and researched, we ran the ball really efficiently (this) year,” Doege said. “But I come from the Air Raid tree. Mike Leach was a big mentor of mine.”

Doege’s next challenge is fixing an Arizona offense that struggled this season under Brennan despite having the offensive firepower of wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan and quarterback Noah Fifita.

Arizona’s offense dropped from 18th nationally in total offense in 2023 to 115th this season. After producing 53 touchdowns last season, the Wildcats only scored 30 this season and had 15 red-zone touchdowns. Marshall had 14 rushing touchdowns and 15 passing touchdowns in the red zone under Doege’s direction.

Following Arizona’s 24-point loss to Kansas State in Manhattan, offensive coordinator Dino Babers, who was on a one-year contract and wasn’t retained, relinquished play-calling duties to tight ends coach and passing game coordinator Matt Adkins. Arizona won its first game against 10th-ranked Utah with Adkins as offensive play-caller, but the Wildcats won only one game for the remainder of the season. Arizona had the second-lowest scoring offense in the Big 12 — averaging 21.8 points per game — and rushing offense. Arizona had five games this season with fewer than 100 net rushing yards.

“This is a result-oriented business,” Brennan said last week. “We didn’t score enough points. In the simplest offensive football terms, we needed to be more productive that way. It was challenging for Noah because we had issues running the football and we had issues protecting him. If you can protect him, then he can deliver the ball, and we’ve seen how awesome he is at that.

“If you can run the ball, that also takes a little bit of pressure off the protection in the pass game, so we’ve got a lot to fix.”

Fifita had a 23:5 touchdown-to-interception ratio last season; this year, he finished with 18:12. A season after Fifita became the only Wildcat in school history to have a completion rate (73.6%) higher than 70%, he dropped to 60.5% in the new system. Fifita had the most throwaways (37) in college football this season, according to Pro Football Focus.

The pairing of Doege and Fifita has the potential to get Fifita back to quarterbacking Arizona at a high level, but the Wildcats are in the midst of roster-building for 2025.

Doege and Fifita have already been in communication since the offensive coordinator’s hiring.

“Noah is a real dude. I’m excited about being able to have the opportunity to coach him,” Doege said. “I’ve already sent him a couple of text messages and we’ve been texting back-and-forth.”

Doege said Fifita “is priority No. 1 for me because obviously this offense is a lot better if Noah is behind center.”

“I’m really excited about the quarterback,” Doege said. “He makes this thing go.”

Step one for Arizona’s offense this season was to find an offensive coordinator.

Step two is to build the offense through the portal and recruiting, especially after losing McMillan and offensive lineman Jonah Savaiinaea to the NFL Draft. The Wildcats are also losing veteran center Josh Baker to graduation and guard Wendell Moe Jr. to the transfer portal. Arizona is returning just two starters on the offensive line and is losing arguably the program’s best-ever receiver in McMillan.

Step two will be slightly easier now that step one is complete.

“We’ve got Seth here and let’s go to work,” Brennan said. “Let’s bring in some of the best football players we can.”

Extra points

• Brennan, on the defensive coordinator and special teams coordinator vacancies: “We’re working through that right now.”
• Former Arizona offensive lineman JT Hand committed to Oregon State after four seasons at the UA. Hand played in 10 games during his Arizona career at guard and center. Hand reunites with Oregon State offensive line coach Kyle DeVan, who recruited him to Arizona during the Kevin Sumlin era.
• Arizona kicker Tyler Loop committed to play in the Hula Bowl in Orlando. The all-star showcase features some of the top upperclassmen and draft-eligible players in college football. The Hula Bowl is on Saturday, Jan. 11, at 10 a.m. on CBS Sports Network.
• McMillan earned two more All-America honors. He was named a Walter Camp Second-Team All-American and a First-Team All-American by the American Football Coaches Association