Jedd Fisch wants salary pool increased for Arizona Wildcats assistant coaches

It’s inevitable Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch will receive a contract extension between now and when the Wildcats play in their soon-to-be announced bowl game.

The red-hot 15th-ranked Wildcats, after thrashing Arizona State by 36 points on Saturday, are one of the fastest-rising programs in college football and just ended their third season under Fisch with a 9-3 record. Between the Wildcats’ 1-11 record in Fisch’s inaugural season to this year, it’s the best two-year improvement in program history.

In the contract terms provided to the Star by the UA athletic department, Fisch’s current five-year contract, which expires after the 2027 season, is worth $18.3 million. The Arizona coach is set to earn $3.4 million in 2024, $3.6 million in ’25 (along with a one-time $400,000 retention bonus), $3.65 million in ’26 and $4 million in his final season in ’27. As it stands, Fisch would be tied with Cincinnati’s Scott Satterfield for the second-lowest paid coach in the Big 12 in 2024; UCF’s Gus Malzahn will earn $2.3 million.

When asked about a contract extension for Fisch, who received a pay boost following the 2022 season, UA athletic director Dave Heeke told reporters on Saturday that Arizona will “do everything we can” to keep Fisch as head coach of the Wildcats.

“We want him here for a long time,” Heeke said. “We’ve told him that.”

Fisch said, “Yeah, that sounds good to me. That’s up to Dave. It sounds good to me. I’m certainly all for it.”

Fisch also understands the importance of staff retention and keeping the assistant coaches who’ve had instrumental roles in the ascension of UA football.

“Before I get my contract done, we’re going to make sure that all of our coaches are taken care of here,” Fisch said during his news conference on Monday. “All of the assistant coaches, we’ll try to accommodate them accordingly.”

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Assistant coaches like defensive coordinator Johnny Nansen, who elevated the Wildcats defense from the sixth-worst unit in FBS to No. 29 in a one-year span, and wide receivers coach Kevin Cummings, who’s mentored and developed stars such as Tetairoa McMillan and Jacob Cowing, among other coaches are bound to garner interest from schools with deeper pockets than Arizona.

Fisch is clamoring to keep the band together before he reaps the benefits from the success of Arizona football under his direction.

“We understand it’s a very competitive atmosphere out there in the profession, and the most important part of my contract is that our salary pool for our assistant coaches continue to increase and that we’re able to keep our staff in check,” Fisch said. “It’s been very, very important the consistency of our staff, which has enabled us to win. Before I worry about myself, I want to make sure we take care of them.”

Extra points

Fisch said the team will “reset these next couple days” and then have practices. Some of Arizona’s coaches will attend high school football state championships in Arizona and California to recruit players, then the UA will have its team banquet on Sunday. Said Fisch: “Looking forward to what’s on the horizon. Obviously it’s a great time to be a Wildcat. A lot of people want to be Wildcats right now, so that makes life when it comes to recruiting.”

Fisch, on Arizona tight end Tanner McLachlan, who passed Rob Gronkowski on Saturday for most career catches (76) by a UA tight end: “Super cool for him. We still got another game to play and he has a chance to set some more records. ... He’s been great since he got here. He’s been here a couple years and came here as a walk-on and we were able to give him a scholarship, and then once we gave him a scholarship, he never changed. He just kept getting better and better and better and doing things right and setting the tone on what it means to be a great leader and what it means to be a really good football player.”

Since the Wildcats will be in Tucson to prepare for the bowl game, Arizona won’t open its practice fields and Arizona Stadium to NFL teams traveling to the West Coast for games, like it did with the New York Giants and New England Patriots in the last two seasons. Said Fisch: “We didn’t market it with the idea that we’ll probably going to have to use our practice space. It’s somewhat limited. It worked out well that the first two years, the Giants and the Patriots we’re able to be here, but this year we’ll be using it during December.”