Could Don Brown last less than one season at Arizona?

Yahoo! Sports' Pete Thamel is reporting that the Wildcats defensive coordinator has emerged as the top candidate for the open head coach position at UMass. Thamel says there is no announcement expected at this time with the Wildcats set to take on Washington State on the road Friday night.

That Brown is under serious consideration should not come as a surprise as the first-year UA defensive coordinator has his roots on the East Coast as a Massachusetts native. Brown was previously at UMass as the head coach from 2004-08 with a stint as a defensive coordinator at the school for two seasons beginning in 1998.

Most of his time as a coach has been spent in the Northeast.

Brown joined Arizona's staff under first-year head coach Jedd Fisch after both coaches were together previously at Michigan. The UA defensive coordinator has brought an aggressive style of play to Tucson that has the Wildcats currently tied for fourth in the Pac-12 with 19 sacks this season.

Arizona is also currently second in the conference as a defense allowing just 193.6 passing yards per game so far through 10 games. Both are significant improvements for UA from a season ago.

Brown has also been key on the recruiting side as he has helped the Wildcats put together a strong class defensively highlighted by four-star linebacker commit Tyler Martin, who was once committed to play for Brown at Michigan.

Two of Arizona's three four-star commits in the 2022 class will play defense for the Wildcats.

Recently after Arizona secured its first win of the season to break a 20-game losing streak, by away of a 10-3 victory over Cal, Brown expressed his appreciation for the work the players put in over the course of the streak to eventually end up on the winning side.

He became emotional discussing the win garnering a strong response from his players.

"It makes us feel great," defensive tackle Kyon Barrs said this week of Brown's response to the win. "It makes us feel like he cares, which he does. We know that. After losing two years straight and coming back and winning that game, which he really wanted, we all love it.

"We love it for him, too, as much as he loves it for us."

Brown has not been disappointed by the response from the Arizona players this season after installing a different scheme upon joining the team last winter. He had a tall task turning around a defensive group that finished 116th overall among 127 FBS teams in total defense during the 2020 season.

The Wildcats now rank 55th overall in that same category through 10 games. Brown has been pleased with the players transformation and effort throughout the year.

"I think the players have done a great job of buying in to the scheme, to each other, to the coaches and we're certainly on an upward trend," Brown said last week about his group. "I still think there's a lot of improvement that we can still squeeze out."

Brown spent five seasons at Michigan prior to arriving at Arizona where he helped guide the Wolverines to top-12 finishes in total defense in four of his five seasons as the defensive coordinator. Michigan had the top-ranked defense in the 2016 season.

He has also made stops at Maryland and Boston College as defensive coordinator at those programs. He has been a head coach three times in his career first at Plymouth State beginning in 1993 and at Northeastern beginning in 2000, in addition to his stint at UMass.

The Wildcats are set to travel to Pullman this week to take on Washington State Friday night at 7 p.m. MST. Arizona enters the week fifth in the Pac-12 in total defense with two games left to play. It has been more than a decade since the Wildcats finished the year better than eighth.

Brown, 66, is a native of Spencer, Massachusetts.

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