Arizona football: Marcel Yates tweets that he will coach Wildcats’ defensive backs

With the departure of Donte Williams to Nebraska, the Arizona Wildcats are still short one defensive assistant.

But as some had speculated, defensive coordinator Marcel Yates will move from the linebackers to defensive backs according to a tweet on his protected account.

Here is a screenshot of it:

Yates was a defensive back himself at Boise State from 1996-99, and coached in the secondary in some form from 2001-15 at Montana, Boise State, and Texas A&M before joining the Arizona staff last offseason.

This shift likely means that Rich Rodriguez will be adding a linebackers coach to his staff to fill the Williams vacancy. After the Los Angeles Rams fired Jeff Fisher, Arizona alum Chuck Cecil’s name became very popular as a potential replacement. However, Cecil is a defensive backs/safeties guy, so that seems less likely now.

Plenty of Arizona alums will come up as possible replacements (Antonio Pierce, Lance Briggs, Ricky Hunley all come to mind). As we’ve seen, Rodriguez doesn’t really have an inclination to bring in Arizona people to work for him, but the name on here that makes a lot of sense is Pierce given his high school coaching ties in Southern California now.

But for right now, it appears we can anticipate Arizona not hiring a new secondary guy.