The highest-paid assistant coach in UA history, any sport, was defensive coordinator Paul Rhoads, who was fired after one season on Kevin Sumlin's staff in 2020. But Rhoads had a year remaining on his contract at $800,000 for 2021. He spent that year not at the UA earning his $800,000, but as a defensive analyst on the Ohio State staff. He is now an analyst at Mississippi State.
After Rhoads comes former defensive coordinator Duane Akina’s $780,000 in 2024. According to USA Today's thorough database of college football coaching compensation, Akina was paid $825,000 this season as a defensive backs coach at Texas.
Jedd Fisch's 2023 defensive coordinator, Johnny Nansen, was paid $750,000 for his work on the UA's 10-3 club and was due to get a $50,000 retention bonus, giving him $800,000 and equaling Rhoads as the highest paid UA assistant coach. But Nansen jumped to Texas for $900,000, and this year was paid $1.1 million.
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Such is the itinerant nature of college sports in the modern era, especially college football coaching. Salaries aren't going down or leveling off. The competition to retain elite assistant coaches is intense.
Arizona athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois is ahead of the game. After UA defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales' impressive performance this season, he is getting a salary bump from $600,000 to $900,000 for the 2026 season, making him the highest-paid assistant in UA history.
Arizona defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales hands out fives to his unit after a stand against Weber State, Sept. 6, 2025, at Arizona Stadium.
Gonzales is one of 15 semifinalists for the Frank Broyles assistant coach of the year award, and although that award often goes to the big-name schools like Ohio State and Alabama, it would be well deserved if the voting committee did its research and discovered that Gonzales' Arizona defense yielded just 18.9 points per game this season, an almost unequaled improvement of 12.9 points per game over the Wildcats' 2024 defense (31.8).
It is the lowest figure at Arizona since Dick Tomey's 1994 Desert Swarm team had successive years allowing 9.8, 13.4 and 15.8 points per game.
Those UA defenses were so good that the New York Giants hired UA defensive coordinator Larry Mac Duff to be an assistant coach, and Army hired Mac Duff's partner, Rich Ellerson, to be its head coach. It would be absolutely no surprise if Gonzales is pursued by a big market SEC or Big Ten school this offseason. That's how it works.
Reed-Francois has made Arizona competitive in the growing salary market and then some. She hired offensive coordinator Seth Doege for $750,000 this year, up from the $500,000 previous OC Dino Babers received in 2024.
The Big 12 has been proactive in paying its defensive coordinators high-market-value salaries. Such as:
– Colorado's Robert Livingston was paid $1.55 million this season.
– Iowa State's Jon Heacock was paid $1.16 million this season.
– Texas Tech's Shiel Wood signed a four-year deal for $3.96 million.
– A³§±«'²õ Brian Ward is in the second year of a three-year contract worth $800,000 this season.
– Kansas State paid Joe Klanderman $825,000 this year.
– U³Ù²¹³ó'²õ Morgan Scalley was paid $1.4 million this season.
– West Virginia's Zac Alley was paid $1.5 million in his first season coaching for Rich Rodriguez.
The Big 12 private schools, TCU, BYU and Baylor, do not make their coaching salaries available to the public.
Before arriving at Arizona, Gonzales was the head coach of his alma mater, the New Mexico Lobos, at which he was paid $750,000 a year.
