Former Arizona football coach Jedd Fisch got the Washington Huskies job on Sunday and by this afternoon, names to replace him were already surfacing.
Multiple reports say that Texas Longhorns defensive coordinator Johnny Nansen and Cal Bears head coach Justin Wilcox are the top two choices of Arizona athletic director Dave Heeke.
Like Washington, Arizona apparently plans to move quickly to replace Fisch, who replaced Kalen DeBoer at Washington less than a week after DeBoer replaced Nick Saban at Alabama.
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Johnny Nansen has support of Arizona football team
Nansen was just hired as the new defensive coordinator for the Texas Longhorns, but if Heeke moves fast, he can catch Nansen before he leaves town.
Players have already lined up in support of Nansen. All-Pac-12 linebacker Jacob Manu, kicker Tyler Loop and left guard Wendell Moe and other Wildcats players were already posting #HireNansen on their X (formerly twitter) accounts as soon as Fisch was hired at Washington.
Nansen led the Wildcats to an impressive turnaround from 2022. Last season, they game up 21.1 points per game, which was 15.4 fewer than the season before. They gave up 118.2 yards rushing per game last season, compared to right at 210 yards the season before.
More importantly, Nansen is a good recruiter and has worked the fertile west coast.
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Justin Wilcox competed against Arizona football at Cal
It seems like a lateral move on paper, but Arizona will get more money from the Big 12 than the Cal Bears will get from the ACC.
Plus, the Big 12 won’t be as strong of a league now that Texas and Oklahoma are leaving, so if he could keep the momentum going at Arizona, he would have a great chance to get his team into the playoff.
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Wilcox was the defensive coordinator at Wisconsin in 2016, for a team that went 11–3 and won the Cotton Bowl. The Badgers’ defense ranked in the Top 10 in several categories. He was hired at Cal the next season.
He has gone 36-43 at Cal and taken his teams to three bowl games. He signed a contract extension, adding four years to the deal that ended after the 2023 season, through the 2027.