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Arizona Targeting San Jose State’s Brett Brennan?
Wildcats have a new top choice for new head coach?
Contact/Follow @JeremyMauss & @MWCwire
Will SJSU lose its coach?
Coaching in a non-power conference is a double-edged sword for its fanbase. A team has success and there is a real fear of leaving for a Power 5 job for usually a whole lot more money and a chance at the “big times.”
Arizona is that current open Power 5 job in the Western United State and after San Jose State’s amazing run this year that includes an undefeated regular season and a Mountain West title, could be losing its head coach Brett Brennan and it sucks.
Pete Thamel of Sports Illustrated is reporting that Brennan is “picking up traction” to be the next Arizona head coach.
Sources: The name picking up traction in the Arizona search is San Jose State coach Brent Brennan. He's a former Dick Tomey GA, the hottest coach on the West Coast and just led SJSU to the Mountain West title.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) December 20, 2020
Arizona is not a great job but it is not also a bottom-dwelling Power 5 job like Vanderbilt or Illinois or Rutgers or Maryland. The Wildcats have had some success in the Pac-10/12 with their best year ever coming when Rich Rodriguez was their head coach when he took them to the Fiesta Bowl in 2014, finished with a 10-4 record, and ranked 19th in the top 25. That was their highest ranking since finishing fourth in 1998.
The team has never gone to a Rose Bowl and has just three double-digit winning seasons in its history and its last conference title was in 1993 in the Pac-10. That is its only league title in a major conference.
There is some potential with this job as Dick Tomey has shown and even Rodriguez with his Fiesta Bowl season. This job would be a huge step up for Brennan but a blow to the San Jose State program that is just now turning the corner.
It would be another pretty big rebuild as the Pac-12 South has USC which gets the talent, both Utah and Arizona are solidly in the top half of the division, Colorado looks to be on the upswing, and UCLA is having issues with Chip Kelly who may not be for long in Westwood.
The gap is not huge but it would take a while to build up this Wildcats team if Brennan chooses to take the job.
