Chuck Cecil, Ricky Hunley excited to return as coaches at Arizona

Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch has assembled a staff of motivated coaches heading into his first season with the Wildcats. Two of the most intense and energizing members of the staff have deep ties to the program providing a source for their motivation. Safeties coach Chuck Cecil and defensive line coach Ricky Hunley are both members of the College Football Hall of Fame after having storied careers with the Wildcats.

Cecil was a standout walk-on safety who finished his career as one of the most accomplished UA players while Hunley was a highly-recruited player who lived up to his billing as one of the most talented players to ever play for the Wildcats.

Both went on to play and coach in the NFL, but there was a strong pull to return to Tucson and help the Wildcats reach its heights as a program. Cecil had that pull even when he was firmly planted as a defensive coordinator in the professional ranks.

"I actually had that conversation with my wife when I was the defensive coordinator for the Titans in Tennessee," Cecil recounted during a conversation with the media last week. "We'd been there nine years, 10 years whatever and doing well. I told her one night I said, 'You realize at some point I'm going back to the University of Arizona?' She looked at me like I was crazy.

"I just said, 'no, no, no I have to go back. I have to.' I had to, and I'm here. I'm happy to be here. I can't even tell you how excited."

Cecil likened his time as a player for the Wildcats to a fairytale with his goal now being to prepare the current players for the future while helping to restore some of the glory back to the Wildcats from his time on campus.

The UA alum has been part of the program in recent years as a senior defensive analyst under former head coach Kevin Sumlin. Being around the team certainly helped give Cecil some of the interactions that he wanted but there were plenty of limitations about how much he could impact the team in that role.

He will have have an even better opportunity to impact players directly and the same can be said for Hunley who has had the same kind of eagerness to become a coach at Arizona as Cecil has had.

Unlike Cecil, however, Hunley has had to wait to start to make that impact despite being ready to join the coaching staff. The former UA linebacker has certainly let it be known that he has been interested in joining the Wildcats' staff but it wasn't until Fisch took over that it became a reality.

The two have worked alongside one another in the past and the stars lined up to bring Hunley back to his alma mater and it's not a moment too soon.

"I just had those same feelings in my gut that this was gonna be a good thing," Hunley said last week when describing the process of driving into Tucson from California and relating it to arriving to UA for the first time as a recruit. "Yeah, it's been a long time coming, and I'm just so excited about it.

"... It's just like getting back on the horse."

For Hunley that is an appropriate comparison.

Cecil has not yet been a full-time college coach, but Hunley has. He just hasn't done it in a while. The last time he was working as a college coach was back in 2015 when he has at Memphis. It's not new to him, however, as he has spent a big portion of his coaching career at the college level with stops at USC, Florida and Missouri preceding a long stint in the NFL.

Coaches will often speak of feeling at home on the football field and for Hunley being a coach is what he does and what he wants to do since the game has been such an integral aspect of his life.

"I started in football at age six," he said. "That's something that's like your lifelong dream to continue on that path. I didn't completely stop being involved in football. ... It's in my blood, it'll never leave me and I'm just excited to be back doing what I love to do."

Cecil and Hunley have already been active building the team for the future on the recruiting side while building a better bond with their current players. Both will have some time to get their feet wet in their new roles before spring ball when the will finally be able to get on the field with their groups and begin the process of building the new era for the program.

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