Arizona football fan sees Fisch departure as success story

TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) – Long-time supporters of Arizona athletics are already feeling Jedd Fisch’s departure but it isn’t a total loss.

Fisch’s success at Arizona both earns the university more attention and shows the next aspiring head coach what can be accomplished here.

“It’s nice to have someone go to the elite and move up because that’s good for Arizona overall,” said Ed Ackerley.

The lifelong Arizona football fan saw Fisch’s departure as no surprise after what he did with the football team and doesn’t blame him for moving to the University of Washington, which has a program with momentum.

Ackerley, who is a professor at the Eller College of Management, said that the U of A, with its budget challenges, has to be careful about how much it spends on a football coach.

“Maybe you’d like to get a really top quality coach but the price tag of that is probably more than what the faculty would accept and the community would accept,” Ackerley said. “We’ve got to be careful that we don’t overspend our, get out of our lane, if you will, so, that’s why I think the best thing to do would be to get an up-and-coming offensive or defensive coordinator who has not had head coaching experience per se but is ready to do that just like Jedd Fisch was.”

Ackerley is also a booster as a Wildcat Club member and said that other top-tier athletic schools have stronger financial backing from their booster clubs.

He said that the situation shows Arizona’s boosters an opportunity to up their game as the competition takes notice of the talent here.

“We’re entering a different era and I do think the boosters need to step up,” he said. “It’s tough in a town like Tucson where we don’t have a lot of corporate headquarters. We’re relying on small business and that’s a little bit of difficulty, but we have a lot of fans that are very passionate about Arizona football and a lot of alumni who like to support the program.”

Ackerley said that he hopes the talent that Fisch attracted will stay but that he understands that not all of them can be expected to do that.

He said that this could be an opportunity to attract new talent because of what has been done here.

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