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The Wildcats announced special teams coordinator Craig Naivar and linebackers coach Josh Bringuel as the newest members of Brent Brennan’s staff.

Naivar, who was nominated for the Broyles Award as the top assistant coach in college football in 2023, and Bringuel replace former special teams coordinator and linebackers coach Danny Gonzales, who is entering his first season as the Wildcats’ defensive coordinator.

Gonzales will coach every position in Arizona’s defense, with an emphasis on linebackers and safeties. Defensive backs assistant Brett Arce will coach Arizona’s safeties after former UA defensive coordinator Duane Akina, who became a defensive backs coach after the 2024 season, accepted the defensive backs coach job at Texas.

First-year offensive coordinator Seth Doege, Gonzales and Naivar round out Arizona’s coordinators for the 2025 season.

Before his two seasons at Coastal Carolina, Naivar was a special teams coordinator and safeties coach at SMU. Naivar coached against Arizona in 2020 and ‘21 as a safeties coach at USC.

The 53-year-old Taylor, Texas, native also held assistant coaching titles at Texas, Houston, Kentucky, Sam Houston State, Texas State, Rice and Southern Illinois. Naivar started his career as the special teams coordinator at his alma mater Hardin-Simmons in 1994, before graduate assistant stints at New Mexico and TCU.

Naivar takes over an Arizona special teams group that lost multi-year starter and NFL-bound kicker Tyler Loop. The Wildcats return sophomore kicker and punter Michael Salgado-Medina, redshirt senior kicker and punter Cash Peterman and redshirt junior long snapper Trey Naughton. Arizona recently signed San Diego-area kicker Tyler Prasuhn, the son of ex-Wildcat kicker John Prasuhn.

Bringuel was an assistant linebackers coach at Nebraska in 2024 after a season as the Cornhuskers’ defensive quality control coach. Before Nebraska, Bringuel was a graduate assistant at Syracuse under former Nebraska defensive coordinator Tony White, who’s now at Florida State.

After his playing career as a linebacker and edge rusher at San Diego State from 2016-19, Bringuel joined the Aztecs’ coaching staff led by head coach Rocky Long, who mentored and coached with Gonzales.

Bringuel will oversee a linebacker group that lost former All-Pac-12 selection and captain Jacob Manu, who transferred to Washington, and Kamuela Ka’aihue, who entered the transfer portal. The Wildcats return junior Taye Brown, who had 69 tackles and 2.5 sacks as a starter last season, redshirt senior Justin Flowe, redshirt sophomore Leviticus Su’a and redshirt freshmen Stacy Bey and Jabari Mann.

The Wildcats added Max Harris (Texas State), Blake Gotcher (Northwestern State) and Riley Wilson (Montana) in the transfer portal and signed Southern California native Carter Jones and three-star Texas linebacker Myron Robinson, who played in the Navy All-American Bowl in San Antonio, to its 2025 recruiting class.

Harris, a Montgomery, Alabama native, signed with Incarnate Word, then transferred to Louisiana Monroe for his sophomore season in 2023. After a year at ULM, Harris transferred to Texas State, where he had 44 tackles and a forced fumble.

In two seasons at Montana, the 6-2, 224-pound Wilson was a back-to-back second-team All-Big Sky Conference choice. He had the second-most tackles for loss (15) in the Big Sky in 2023. Wilson had 136 tackles and 26.5 stops for loss in two seasons at Montana.

Gotcher had 162 tackles, 10.5 stops for loss, 4.5 sacks, two fumbles and an interception in Northwestern State’s winless season (0-12) in 2024. Gotcher, an FCS All-American, led FCS in tackles and tallied the fourth-most tackles in Northwestern State history.

Arizona begins its spring practice schedule on March 18, with the annual spring showcase scheduled for April 19.