It’s not every day that a college football coach holds court with media members he just met to discuss the merits of buying Walter White’s house and the reason the burgers at the Blake’s Lotaburgers here don’t taste quite as good as the ones back home.
“I tried to buy that house,” Danny Gonzales said regarding the “Breaking Bad” residence in Albuquerque. “If you make that an Airbnb, you could make a killing.”
Michael Lev is a senior writer/columnist for the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson.com and The Wildcaster.
And the burgers?
“The grease,” he explained, “is 70 years old.”
Gonzales would know.
Arizona’s new linebackers coach and special-teams coordinator was born and raised in Albuquerque. He played for the University of New Mexico. He began his coaching career with the Lobos. He spent the past four seasons as the head coach at his alma mater.
Former New Mexico coach Danny Gonzales walks the field on Sept. 24, 2022 against LSU in New Orleans. Gonzales spent four season as the head coach at his alma mater. He’s now the linebackers coach and special teams coordinator at Arizona.
He might have been one of the few people in America who viewed that gig as a dream job.
New Arizona special teams and linebackers coach Danny Gonzales was in teaching mode on Day 1 with the Wildcats during spring ball back on March 26.
It just so happens that Arizona, under new head coach Brent Brennan, will open the 2024 season against New Mexico. New Lobos coach Bronco Mendenhall is one of Gonzales’ mentors. Gonzales wants the Lobos to succeed. Just not on opening night at Arizona Stadium.
“When they come here on Aug. 31,” he said, “they’re the enemy.”
That sentiment encapsulates Gonzales’ approach to a business in which job-hopping is more the rule than the exception.
“My entire career,” he said, “wherever you’re at, you’re all in.”
Gonzales hasn’t been a job hopper, relatively speaking. He began his coaching career in 1999, and Arizona is just the fourth school for which he has worked.
Gonzales’ shortest stint anywhere was two seasons, and he left that post for a good reason: To become the head coach at the school where he played, in the city where he grew up.
That two-year run just happened to be with the UA’s Enemy No. 1.
Danny Gonzales, right, spent two seasons working for Herm Edwards as ASU's defensive coordinator before becoming the head coach at New Mexico.
Gonzales spent the 2018 and ’19 seasons as the defensive coordinator at Arizona State under Herm Edwards. It isn’t uncommon for coaches to work up there and down here. For example: Charlie Ragle served as Arizona’s special teams coordinator under Rich Rodriguez. Ragle currently serves in the same capacity for Kenny Dillingham.
They don’t all lean into the rivalry as much as Gonzales.
“I’m trying to not get myself in trouble,” he said with a smirk. “You can go back on YouTube and Twitter, and you can see all the wonderful things I said about this place.”
Challenge accepted.
In an interview posted on YouTube on Nov. 27, 2019, three days before that year’s Territorial Cup, Gonzales said the following about the Wildcats:
“They’re a good football team … minus the seven losses in a row.”
It was only six. Soon to be seven. The joke landed nonetheless.
Wearing a black ASU hoodie with a gold fork on the chest and a matching baseball cap, Gonzales also rattled off the Sun Devils’ records in the series since World Word II and the passing of Proposition 200 in 1958. That ballot measure sought a name change for the school, from Arizona State College at Tempe to Arizona State University. It succeeded by about a 2-to-1 margin.
Gonzales said last week that he couldn’t understand, at the time, why anyone would vote against it.
“Well, guess what,” he quipped. “I might wear a shirt that says ‘Prop 200’ this year.”
Brennan had no qualms when it came to hiring a former Sun Devil, recognizing how Gonzales’ effervescent personality and coaching bona fides could enhance the UA staff. They were set to take the field together with their team for the first time in an official capacity with the start of spring practice Tuesday afternoon.
Danny Gonzales was born and raised in Albuquerque. The New Mexico job was a dream for him. Now the former Lobos coach will face his alma mater in Arizona's 2024 season opener.
Brennan and Gonzales had known each other for years after battling in the Mountain West. They were on opposite sidelines, the King of Albuquerque noted, for the inaugural New Mexico Bowl on Dec. 23, 2006. (Final score: San Jose State 20, UNM 12.)
“I have the utmost respect and admiration for coach Brennan,” Gonzales said. “I told him a long time ago, ‘I’d love to have the opportunity to work together.’ ”
When Brennan called Gonzales, there was no hesitation, per Gonzales’ telling.
“You wanna be a Wildcat?” Brennan asked.
“I’m all in,” Gonzales replied, reflecting a familiar theme.
“It was that simple,” he added.
Gonzales’ tenure at New Mexico was anything but. His first year coincided with the pandemic.
“We spent the entire 2020 season in Las Vegas,” Gonzales said. “We didn’t get to play a single home game. We lived in a hotel. And then, in ’21, we were still under restriction, not being able to work out in groups larger than five. So my first two years were rough.”
The pandemic proved particularly problematic for Danny Gonzales and New Mexico, which didn't play a single home game during the 2020 season.
It’s extremely difficult to win at New Mexico without those challenges. Since making five bowl games in a six-year span from 2002-07 under Rocky Long — Gonzales’ biggest influence in the profession — the Lobos have made only two since. Mike Locksley, who has turned Maryland into an annual bowl participant, went 2-26 at UNM before being fired during the 2011 season.
The Lobos were 11-32 under Gonzales, who believed they were trending in the right direction. Their 4-8 record last season was their best since 2016, and they finished the season with a win over Fresno State and a double-overtime loss to Utah State — two bowl participants.
“We got better as time went on,” Gonzales said. “But getting better is not what people want in this day and age.”
Gonzales truly wishes nothing but the best for New Mexico, a place he always will care about, and Mendenhall, a coach who helped him break into the business.
Mendenhall tutored Gonzales as a player and graduate assistant. This isn’t a Walter White-Jesse Pinkman relationship. There will surely be hugs and handshakes before and after the game. If football teams weren’t on such tight schedules, maybe they’d get a burger at Blake’s.
But when it comes to those 60 minutes between the white lines, Gonzales badly wants to send Mendenhall back to Albuquerque with an 0-1 record. That’s how it goes when you’re all in.
