Coach Arce Leads Safeties In His Second Year As Coach

It is the first year as a safeties coach for Brett Arce, who coached the nickel backs since making his way to the Arizona Wildcats in 2021.

Arce has had a great mentor to offer insight and advice in Duane Akina, who was last year's defensive coordinator for the Wildcats.

Akina left after the Wildcats' 4-8 season to take a defensive backs coaching position at the University of Texas. Arce made sure to gain as much knowledge from the legendary coach as he could before the departure.

"These past couple of years, while I've been with him, we've had a great working relationship and bounced ideas off each other," Arce said of Akina. "I was like a sponge, just soaking everything up. The way he teaches the game, he teaches offensive theory and I've stolen some of that. He was a quarterback and has been an offensive coordinator, so I think the knowledge of that side of the ball, I was able to gain from him in that part and regurgitate and teach that to our guys."

in his career filled with accolades, Akina coached three Jim Thorpe award winners, six finalists, a multitude of NFL players and has passed along many lessons to coaches under him.

Akina was a part of the 'Desert Swarm' staff that ran a muck on opposing offenses under head coach Dick Tomey.

Arce coached at USC before making his way to Tucson from 2018-2020, mentoring the likes of NFL talent such as Adoree Jackson and Talanoa Hufunga. He will now be using the lessons he learned from Akina to direct veteran safeties Dalton Johnson and Genesis Smith.

The 35-year-old safeties coach began his career as a tight end at Stony Brook in New York. He later became a wide receivers coach.

The previous experience in offense has helped him become a better defensive coach.

"I think it's huge," I played on offense in college and I started as an offensive guy. (I) have since made the transition. You know how offense breaks down defenses, what they're looking for and so you can kind of adjust based on that. You know what gives them problems and how they are going to attack you. I think all that knowledge on that side of the ball and how to adjust to that is key."

Arce is now working with new defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales in a 3-3-5 defense. Without going into too much detail, Arce explained the methods to the style of defense.

"We got guys coming from everywhere right now, whether that's blitzing, safeties dropping in here, dropping in there. I think it's hard for offenses to diagnose pre-snap. That's our job defensively, to make the quarterback second-guess pre-snap. If you're giving him a look and changing that look post-snap, I think we're doing that now and putting stress on offenses."

Coaching the safeties against the up-tempo offense that coordinator Seth Doege has implemented has been a challenge to Arce, but ultimately feels that his players will improve because of it.

"I think it's easier to slow down than go fast. Going tempo, like our offense does, is hard to simulate in practice when you're working against a scout team...I think the world of Seth Doege and what he's doing. They're a pain to go against every day. Them putting stress on us is only going to benefit us in the long run. You can't get that speed and that level of detail and execution like they bring on a day-to-day (basis) when you get into your scout looks. It's hard to do."

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