Arizona expected to hire Dino Babers as offensive coordinator

The Arizona Wildcats have been making coaching moves this offseason, after Jedd Fisch moved on to the Washington Huskies. The Wildcats recently brought in Brent Brennan as their new head coach, and on Thursday evening, they found their offensive coordinator. Arizona is expected to hire former Syracuse head coach Dino Babers as the trigger man for their offense. ESPN’s Pete Thamel confirmed the news on Thursday evening. Babers was an assistant for Arizona when Brent Brennan worked there as a graduate assistant.

Babers also spent time calling the plays at Syracuse, Bowling Green, and Eastern Illinois.

Babers joined the Syracuse program in 2016 as the head coach and finished his time 41-55 in nearly eight seasons. The Orange dropped to 5-6 with a 31-22 defeat at the hands of the Yellow Jackets.

Babers led the program to just two bowl games in his time as head coach. The standout year came in 2018, when Syracuse went 10-3 and finished No. 15 in the AP Poll.

However, the Orange haven’t been able to recapture that magic since. Outside of his 10-win season in 2018, Babers went 31-52 as head coach of Syracuse.

With Eastern Illinois, Bowling Green and Syracuse, Babers is 78-71 as a head coach.

Babers didn’t mince words earlier this year about NIL and the transfer portal affecting a program like Syracuse. Losing players in the portal stings for a program that is arguably just a middle tier ACC team.

“It’s the same old thing: Depth is gone,” Babers said in October. “Our depth is in the transfer portal. You know how many guys we lost. You know what schools they play at. Schools like us, we’re not going to have a lot of depth because it gets bought away.”

Syracuse lost 12 players to the portal this offseason, including standout defensive backs Duce Chestnut (LSU) and Ja’Had Carter (Ohio State). 

“Last year’s game (against Florida State) showed me exactly what name, image and likeness can do,” Babers said. “Because the year before that, we went down there, and they kicked for a field goal in the very last play to beat us.

“Two years before that, we went down there and were kicking for a field goal to tie them, and it got blocked. It showed me how quickly you can change a football team.”

On3’s Nick Kosko also contributed to this article.