UF grad Jedd Fisch hired at Arizona
I had previously heard that new Arizona Wildcats head coach Jedd Fisch had graduated from Florida and worked as a Graduate Assistant during the Spurrier era, but I didn’t know much about his backstory.
Fisch appeared on The Ryen Russillo Podcast last week (episode listed above – time counts down and Fisch interview starts at the 47:43 mark) to discuss his new opportunity in Tucson along with his winding road from Gainesville to the desert.
He was an all-state tennis player at Hanover Park High School in New Jersey and, despite not playing football in high school, Fisch decided he wanted to be a football coach.
“In my opinion, it was like scratching off a lottery ticket and hitting it,” Fisch recounted to Russilo.
“I was a tennis player in school. I decided that the only thing I wanted to be in life was a football coach. My dad said to me, ‘Where do you think is the best coach?’ I said, ‘Florida.,’ cause I wanted to throw the football around. That was the 90s…1994…I mean, no one was throwing the ball around like we were at UF with Spurrier.”
Embed from Getty ImagesFisch knew he had a love for coaching and that Florida was the right place for him.
“I applied to be a student assistant. They said, ‘We don’t have student assistants.’ Alright, so I’m going to try a different approach. I’m going to go be an equipment manager. I didn’t even get the equipment manager’s job…like an assistant equipment manager. I feel like it’s The Office where you’re the assistant to the assistant and I couldn’t even get that job. Alright what’s the next approach? So I went and coached high school football in Gainesville.”
Fisch ended up serving as the defensive coordinator for P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School for the 1997 season while he was still a student at UF.
He was determined to get the attention of Steve Spurrier and so he left cards, notes, and different things on Coach Spurrier’s car.
“Finally, I think he just relented,” Fisch said and Spurrier granted him a five minute meeting. “I went up there and gave my story, he connected me with one of the assistant coaches, they kind of hid me in the back corner and I was the copy machine guy.
“Fortunately, I did a good enough job, and I do say this to anyone who asks, to anyone who wants to coach, be the best copy machine person. Just take great pride in it. Say, ‘Hey, if this is my way in, then I’m going to make sure that every copy is collated, that everything is done right, every aspect of it is right, and that’s kind of how it all started.”
He worked his way up to a Graduate Assistant role in 1999-2000 with the Gators. After the Sugar Bowl loss to Miami in January 2001, Spurrier told Fisch that head coach Dom Capers of the expansion Houston Texans, a team which would not kick off until the 2002 season, had called for a recommendation regarding a strong G.A. and Spurrier passed along Fisch’s name. Fisch was hired by the Texans and was the third coach in the building behind Capers and Chris Palmer.
Fisch has served as the offensive coordinator for the Minnesota Golden Gophers (2009-2010), Miami Hurricanes (2011-2012), Jacksonville Jaguars (2013-2014), and UCLA (2017). He was named the interim head coach at UCLA after Jim Mora Jr. was let go and spent the last season as the quarterbacks coach in New England after two seasons with the Rams.
Fisch graduated from Florida in 1998 with a degree in criminology and his roommate at UF was Howie Roseman, the longtime general manger of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Gators continue to bulk up nonconference schedule
Florida announced a home and home series with Notre Dame. The Gators will travel to South Bend in 2031 with the Fighting Irish returning the trip to Gainesville in 2032.
UF Athletic Director Scott Stricklin has completely revamped Florida football’s approach to nonconference scheduling since his arrival in 2016.
Florida State is only listed through the expiration of the next contract in 2022, but it is reasonable to expect the annual home and home series to continue.
The 2031 schedule may present one of the toughest slates in school history. In addition to a full SEC schedule, Florida will travel to Texas and Notre Dame while hosting Arizona State and, likely, Florida State. It’s a potentially brutal schedule, but you have to commend the job Stricklin has done in reimagining the program’s approach to nonconference games. It’s better for the fans and the program as a whole.
Florida will play at least two Power Five opponents over the next decade starting in 2022. Instead of wasting three games a year playing in games that only concern folks in Orange and Blue, Stricklin has ensured the next decade will give the Gators near annual opportunities to be take center stage nationally before October.
Future Power Five opponents pulled from floridagators.com.
