Michael Lev: Dave Heeke had to act fast to get his man amid ‘awesome and insane’ offseason

Here’s what we already know about new Arizona football coach Brent Brennan: He’s an elite storyteller.

Brennan had so many detailed anecdotes about his time here, his coaching experiences and his mentors during his introductory news conference Wednesday that, more than once, he turned to UA athletic director Dave Heeke to make sure it was OK if he kept talking.

Yes, Coach. This is your day. Take as long as you’d like.

Anyway, when it came to the subject of his whirlwind courtship with Heeke and the UA — hardly unique in today’s college football — Brennan summed it up in just eight words:

“It’s awesome and insane at the same time.”

Is it ever.

Welcome to the so-called “offseason.” Brennan’s introduction came just nine days after the national championship game. Since then, college football has experienced complete chaos. And as the sport moves into its next phase — an expanded playoff and a schedule stretching even later into January — it’s only going to get crazier.

Do you realize what transpired in the coaching world over the past week? Three “Power Four” programs of varying stature — Alabama, Washington and Arizona — each replaced their football coaches within about 48 hours. And none was an internal hire.

Nick Saban’s retirement was the first domino to fall. Alabama pried Kalen DeBoer away from Washington to fill that vacancy and create another one. UW reeled in Jedd Fisch from Arizona. Heeke moved quickly to hire Brennan.

Heeke had little choice but to act fast. The UA had so much to lose if he didn’t.

When a program changes head coaches, a 30-day transfer window opens. Portal-plus, if you will. The longer you don’t have a coach, the greater the risk that your players will leave. They also don’t have to sit out a year anymore, like in the old days — aka, four years ago.

Players will still leave, of course. It’s a matter of who and how many. And it’s already begun.

But by getting Brennan on the ground in Tucson just two days after Fisch fled for Seattle, Heeke was able to start the mitigation process. Brennan has a million items on his to-do list, but he’s already prioritizing building relationships with the players who are still here.

“I'm just trying to get to know them,” Brennan said. “But more importantly, I'm trying to give them a chance to get to know me. Because ... they're in a tough spot with the way the rules are now, right? Like, anyone can leave at any time. That's just the nature of college football. So how quickly can I start to get to know them (and) how quickly can they get to know me to start to build a connection and belief that the best way to move forward is right here at the University of Arizona.”

Compared to the last two hires, bringing Brennan aboard in a span of two days felt like speed dating. Arizona fired Rich Rodriguez on Jan. 2, 2018, and hired Kevin Sumlin on Jan. 14 — 12 days later. The UA fired Sumlin on Dec. 12, 2020, and hired Fisch on Dec. 23 — 11 days later.

But this was really more of a “When Dave Met Brent” situation. Brennan was a finalist for the UA job last time. They had a prior relationship. Heeke didn’t have to do much vetting.

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“I've known Brent for a long time,” Heeke said. “It's been clearly documented that we were interested and had conversations previously. But I followed his career and there's some crossovers, people I know that know him very well, that have been around him on the football field. ...

“I've watched him continuing to grow as a coach. I love being around him, and I've always stayed in contact.”

I asked Heeke if he felt compelled to accelerate the process because of the way the things work now in college football. He said it was important to be both “swift” and “efficient.” However ...

“I'm not going to move fast just to move fast,” Heeke said. “Got to make sure you move the right way and do the right things and get the right person. There are a lot of good coaches out there. Had to get the right person, the right coach for this football program and the right leader for the football program.

“But there's no question the world has changed a little bit, so it's compressed. You want to move quickly. You want to move swiftly. You want to move so that it's in the best interest of our players, our student-athletes. That's what I'm doing. I'm not intimidated or concerned about that, but it's certainly a factor that you've got to keep in mind.”

Heeke didn’t even have the time to look back at what might have been — one of our favorite pastimes as sports pundits/fans.

You might be wondering how the UA could push Brennan’s contract through “subject to ABOR approval” while running into a wall with the regents when it came to Fisch’s extension. The two situations aren’t the same. Nor are the optics.

Arizona needed to hire a football coach when Fisch left. Fisch still had four years remaining on his contract and was seeking a substantial raise. Heeke said he had the board’s full support for the former. As for the latter, well, we’ll let Heeke take it from here.

“I'm a front-windshield guy,” he said. “I'm not going to spend a lot of time looking through the rearview mirror and trying to analyze the roadkill.”

Heeke took a lot of heat for traveling to Pullman, Washington, over the weekend to watch the men’s basketball team play against Washington State. How could he leave Tucson at a time like this?

As Heeke explained Wednesday, “the Earth hadn’t started to crack” when he took off for the Pacific Northwest on Friday. DeBoer was hired that afternoon. Despite being a “front-windshield guy,” Heeke can’t see the future. I doubt anything would have changed if he’d been in town.

As it turned out, Heeke and the Wildcats got stuck in frigid Pullman until Sunday night — the weather-delay equivalent of a root canal. By that point, Fisch was on his way to Seattle.

Alone in a hotel room in Eastern Washington, Heeke got to work.

“I wasn’t here, wasn’t in the middle of the frenzy, so it allowed me to talk to a lot of people, clear a lot of the deck really quick and then begin discussions really fast,” he said. “Things move fast. That's just the nature of it. It became pretty clear as I cleared the deck where I wanted to go.”

With the clock ticking, Heeke happened upon the most precious of commodities. He had time to focus on a singular task.

Amid the insanity, he made an awesome hire.