Arizona has hired New England Patriots assistant Jedd Fisch as its head coach.

The school announced Wednesday that Fisch will replace Kevin Sumlin, who was fired earlier this month after the Wildcats finished the season winless.

“We are tremendously excited to have Jedd Fisch come to Tucson to reinvigorate our football program and lead us to championships,” Arizona Athletic Director Dave Heeke said in a statement. “Jedd has a unique ability to teach the game of football effectively to his players and to inspire them with his passion. We conducted a comprehensive national search with an impressive array of candidates but in the end, Jedd is exactly what our program needs right now and I cannot wait to partner with him to move us forward.”

The 44-year-old arrives in the desert after bouncing between college football and the NFL.

Fisch was hired as New England’s quarterbacks coach under Bill Belichick earlier this year after two seasons with the Los Angeles Rams as senior offensive assistant and assistant offensive coordinator. He previously served as offensive coordinator at Jacksonville and was as an assistant with Seattle, Denver, Baltimore and Houston.

Fisch spent the 2017 season as UCLA’s offensive coordinator and served as interim coach for the final two games after Jim Mora was fired. He also was the passing game coordinator and quarterbacks/wide receivers coach under Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh, and had offensive coordinator stints with Miami and Minnesota.

A New Jersey native, Fisch did not play football in high school or college, but he landed a spot as a graduate assistant at Florida by leaving notes on the windshield of Coach Steve Spurrier’s car.

“I am honored and humbled to lead the University of Arizona football program,” Fisch said. “I am 100% committed to building a program that all Wildcat fans will be proud to support. We will study hard, compete hard, recruit hard and be relentless in all aspects of our program.

He takes over a program in disarray.

The Wildcats never really got on track under Sumlin, winning five games in his first season and watching the win total drop each subsequent season.

Arizona ended the 2019 season on a seven-game losing streak and went 0-5 this year, capped by allowing the most points in the 121-history of the Territorial Cup in a 70-7 loss to rival Arizona State. Sumlin was fired the next day after going 9-20 in three seasons.

NEW ORLEANS BOWL: Shai Werts had three touchdown runs and threw a 65-yard scoring pass for Georgia Southern (8-5) in a 38-3 win over Louisiana Tech (5-5).

NAGURSKI TROPHY: Tulsa linebacker Zaven Collins has won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy honoring the nation’s best defensive player.

The 6-foot-4, 260-pound Collins totaled 54 tackles and 11.5 tackles for loss and four interceptions. The junior had three sacks against Oklahoma State. Two of his interceptions were game-clinchers – a late one against SMU and a 96-yard return for a touchdown against Tulane in overtime.

Collins was runner up for the Butkus Award honoring the nation’s best linebacker that went to Notre Dame linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah

TERRY BOWDEN, the former Auburn coach and son of former Florida State coaching great Bobby Bowden, has been hired by Louisiana-Monroe to rebuild a program that went 0-10 this season.

Bowden, 64, has been serving as a graduate assistant at Clemson the last two years. He had a successful stint as Auburn’s head coach from 1993-98, going 47-17. That came to a tumultuous end with a midseason firing.

After a long run in broadcasting as a television and as a radio analyst, he returned to coaching in 2009 with Division II North Alabama. Bowden was back in Division I with Akron, leading the Zips from 2012-18 and going 35-52 with two bowl appearances.

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