Dave Fipp. Photo from MiamiDolphins.com

Former Arizona Wildcats safety Dave Fipp has joined the staff of new Philadelphia Eagles coach Chip Kelly to coach special teams.

Fipp has spent the past two seasons as an assistant special teams coach with the Miami Dolphins.

There was no official word from the Eagles, who are waiting until the completion of the staff to announce the hirings, but Dolphins coach Joe Philbin confirmed the transaction to CSNPhilly.com, which also reported that Fipp was scouting the Senior Bowl practices outfitted in Eagles gear.

Fipp, 38, played at Arizona from 1994 to 1997, arriving as a walk-on free safety. After ranking third on the team with 54 tackles as a senior, he began his coaching career as the safeties coach at Holy Cross in 1998. Fipp returned to Arizona in 2000 as a graduate assistant coach.

Among other stops, he was the defensive coordinator for Rich Ellerson at Cal Poly and for Dick Tomey at San Jose State before jumping to the NFL for the 2008 season. Fipp spent three seasons with the San Francisco 49ers as their assistant special teams coach.

Another former Wildcat, Peter Hansen, is headed to the Super Bowl with the 49ers.

Hansen, who also played basketball for Lute Olson at Arizona, was a designated kick blocker for Tomey from 1998 to 2001. The 6-7 Hansen blocked seven kicks for the Cats.

He is in his second season as a defensive assistant/quality control coach for the 49ers, following head coach Jim Harbaugh from Stanford, where Hansen was a defensive assistant for two seasons.

There is an ex-Wildcat assistant on the other side of the Super Bowl matchup: Clarence Brooks coaches the defensive line for the Baltimore Ravens. He coached that spot for Arizona from 1990 to 1992.

In other coaching news with Arizona ties, Garret Chachere is returning to the Pac-12 to coach defensive ends for new Cal coach Sonny Dykes, a former UA offensive coordinator. Chachere was at Arizona from 2009 to 2011, coaching inside receivers for two years and running backs for one season.

He spent last season as the tight ends coach/special teams coordinator for Southern Miss but was looking for work again after the school fired Ellis Johnson, who went 0-12 in his first year with the Golden Eagles.

Chachere and Dykes overlapped at Arizona in 2009.

Also, CoachingSearch.com is reporting that former Arizona quarterbacks coach Frank Scelfo will be hired to coach quarterbacks for new Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Gus Bradley.

(Just think: Bradley had two interviews with the Eagles to become their head coach. If Philadelphia had gone in that direction, Bradley might have reunited Scelfo with his star pupil at Arizona, Nick Foles.)

Borne, a senior defensive tackle from East St. John High in Reserve, La., committed to Arizona on Tuesday.

Borne, who is rated a three-star recruit by Rivals.com and Scout.com, said he had scholarship offers from Pittsburgh and Tennessee, among others. He was also considering Ole Miss, which had yet to offer but might have at a later time.

Regardless, he said the time was right to commit to Arizona for a variety of reasons.

He said he liked the academics, interested in civil or chemical engineering. “You have to go to the school that really fits you,” he said. “To me, the first thing is academics. Academics really come before football.”

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have NFL dreams. He said he was impressed that not only did Arizona send three defensive linemen into the NFL Draft this year, but that defensive line coach Joe Salave’a also played in the NFL.

“I got a real positive vibe from him, knowing that he went there (at Arizona) and then went to the NFL,” Borne said. “I already know he will have me prepared for when that time comes for the NFL.”

Running backs coach Garret Chachere, who is from New Orleans and recruits Louisiana for the Cats, was the primary recruiter for Borne. With Chachere and quarterbacks coach Frank Scelfo, another with long times to the state, Arizona likely will stay active in recruiting Louisiana.

Borne (6-3, 280) is Arizona’s 12th known commitment, including defensive lineman Ben Dixon, who committed Monday.

Arizona Wildcats 2012 football recruiting class

Name	Position	Height	Weight	School
Gerron Borne	DT	6-3	280	East St. John HS (Reserve, La.)
Beau Boyster	OT	6-4	285	St. John Bosco HS (Bellflower, Calif.)
Cayman Bundage	OL	6-2	293	Douglass HS (Oklahoma City)
Ben Dixon	DE	6-3	250	St. Bonaventure HS (Ventura, Calif.)
T.D. Gross	OL	6-6	260	Santana HS (Santee, Calif.)
Zach Hemmila	OL	6-3	275	Chandler HS
Kyle Kelley	DE	6-3	205	Woodbridge HS (Irvine, Calif.)
Josh Kern	QB	6-5	190	Clark HS (San Antonio)
Taylor McNamara	TE	6-5	235	Westview HS (San Diego)
Dwight Melvin	DE	6-1	265	Betty H. Fairfax HS (Laveen)
Steven Moore	OL	6-6	265	Elk Grove HS (Elk Grove, Calif.)
Nathan Sudfeld	QB	6-5	215	Modesto Christian HS (Modesto, Calif.)

]]> http://tucsoncitizen.com/wildcatreport/2011/08/02/2063/feed/ 4 http://tucsoncitizen.com/wildcatreport/2011/03/31/arizona-football-shuffles-its-offensive-coaching-staff/ http://tucsoncitizen.com/wildcatreport/2011/03/31/arizona-football-shuffles-its-offensive-coaching-staff/#comments Thu, 31 Mar 2011 17:37:12 +0000 Anthony Gimino http://tucsoncitizen.com/wildcatreport/?p=1591

Garrett Chachere at Wednesday's practice.
Photo by Michael Chow/The Arizona Republic

The Arizona Wildcats football team, without any fanfare or announcement, tweaked its offensive coaching staff this spring.

The shuffle moves inside receivers coach Garret Chachere to running backs, puts outside receivers coach Dave Nichol in charge of the inside receivers as well, and frees up coordinator Seth Littrell to focus on play-calling and take a bigger-picture look at the entire offense.

Littrell last season was the running backs coach and shared the coordinator duties with now-departed offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh.

“Everybody got a chance to do something they kind of wanted to do,” Chachere said after Wednesday night’s practice.

“It just fit perfectly. It is like anything else, any job you’re in. If you get a new challenge, it kind of gets your batteries charged again. I really have been loving every minute of it.”

After last season, Chachere was intrigued about the possibility of coaching running backs. Independently, Littrell had been thinking of a similar shuffle. When they realized they had the same idea, they took it to head coach Mike Stoops after signing day … and Stoops put his rubber stamp on the changes.

“I’ve coached inside before and I have been in this system forever,” Nichol said. “I’m excited. I think it’s good because we’re on the same page with all that kind of stuff. (The receivers) all hearing one voice — I think that will probably help.

“I think we all feel really good about it.”

Chachere, 42, had coached the inside receivers at Arizona for the past two seasons. He has coached on both sides of the ball during his career, but the bulk of his experience before arriving in Tucson was on defense.

“I always wanted to get back on offense,” said Chachere.

“Running backs is something I always liked and was interested in. But what it really allows me to do is be more involved in the front and the protection, and that was my main focus. I really wanted to be more involved in the protection concept and how offenses decide to block things. The running backs allow me to do that more than the receivers.”

Chachere was a running back at Tulane in 1987 and 1988, although he says he was the kind of running back “who didn’t play.”

Keola Antolin was Arizona's leading rusher in 2010. Photo by Jason O. Watson-US PRESSWIRE

He was a walk-on who had to give up football after suffering a neck injury the summer before his third season.

“I always tell people I played the position of running back at Tulane, but ‘play’ is too strong a word. I was ‘at’ the position of running back,” he said.

“But I think that has helped me in coaching for the past 19 years. It has helped me at times to coach kids who maybe don’t have the best skill but have the desire, and to coach kids who do have great skill but don’t have a lot of motivation because it’s come easy to them.”

Overall, the changes are part of Arizona’s new plan to simplify.

“There are some new things to the guys, but it’s simpler,” Nichol said. “Nothing drastic, but we have tried to simplify terminology and formations.”

Last year, the Wildcats tried to balance a spread offense with power running sets … and late in the season, even Stoops talked about how hard it was to recruit ample personnel to drive both of those philosophies.

Given the team’s skill at quarterback and receiver, Arizona is going to be more spread-heavy this season while testing new ways to run the ball out of its power sets.

Littrell, Chachere, Nichol, quarterbacks coach Frank Scelfo and new offensive line coach Robert Anae will be in charge in finding ways to make it all work.

“It’s been good — really, really good,” Chachere said of switching to running backs. “It’s really got me going.

“Hopefully, we’ll run the ball better, catch the ball better and block better.”

Related: Knee injury threatens the season of running back Greg Nwoko

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