Former Iowa State head football coach and Ankeny native Paul Rhoads has been named the interim head coach at Arizona following Saturday’s firing of head coach Kevin Sumlin.
Sumlin was let go one day after the Wildcats’ 70-7 loss to rival Arizona State. Arizona is 0-5 this season after dropping its final seven games last year.
Rhoads served as Iowa State’s head coach from 2009-15. He then spent two years as an assistant coach at Arkansas and two more at UCLA before joining Arizona as the defensive coordinator in 2020.
Sumlin finishes 9-20 in three seasons at the school. He had two years left on his contract and will be paid $7-7.5 million by Arizona.
The Wildcats lost several players this fall when it appeared that the Pac-12 would not be playing football this season. One of the transfers, linebacker Tony Fields, went to West Virginia and became the leading tackler in the Big 12 Conference.
“Our attention now turns to finding the next head coach at the University of Arizona, while we continue to support our student-athletes, who have sacrificed so much since returning to campus this summer,” Athletic Director Dave Heeke said in a statement. “We will cast a wide net to identify and recruit a coach who shares our vision, our values and our passion for winning.”