Arizona is hiring longtime special teams assistant coach Craig Naivar per Pete Thamel of ESPN. Naivar began his career in 1994 and 1995 as the special teams coordinator at Hardin-Simmons who is currently in Division III. Naivar has previously worked for power conference programs at Kentucky USC and Texas.
Naivar spent the last two seasons at Coastal Carolina as the defensive coordinator. The Chanticleers were 50th nationally allowing 23.8 points per game in 2023 and 108th permitting 31.6 PPG in 2024. Coastal Carolina allowed 379.5 PPG which was 66th in 2023 and 413.8 YPG in 2024 which was 107th.
Naivar also coached safeties in his two seasons at Coastal Carolina. Coastal Carolina was 44th allowing 211.8 passing YPG in 2023 and 85th averaging 227.8 in 2024. Naviar was more recently a special teams coordinator when he also coached safeties at SMU in the first season under Rhett Lashlee in 2022.
SMU was 125th averaging 15.95 yards per kickoff return in 2022, 50th averaging 9.12 yards per punt return, 108th allowing 11.00 yards per punt return, the kickoff return unit was 16th holding opponents to 16.83 yards per kickoff return, 108th averaging 59.58 per kickoff and 34th posting 43.68 yards per punt.
Sources: Arizona is set to hire veteran assistant Craig Naivar as the school’s new special teams coach. He’s was last the DC at Coastal Carolina and was nominated for the Broyles Award there in 2023. He’s worked as the special teams coordinator at SMU, Texas, Kentucky and Rice. pic.twitter.com/Gj0GnTgZyC
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) March 3, 2025
In 2023 Naivar was nominated for the Broyles Award as the best assistant coach nationally. Talanoa Hufanga was named a consensus first-team All-America and the 2020 Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year in the first of two seasons Naivar was the USC safeties coach.
Caden Sterns was the Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year in 2018 and DeShon Elliott a unanimous All-American and Jim Thorpe Award finalist in 2017 when Naivar coached safeties at Texas in those two seasons. Naivar also coached 2017 Ray Guy Award winner and Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Year Michael Dickson at Texas.
Naivar is part of a significant turnover on the 2025 Arizona coaching staff. Elevated defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Danny Gonzales, running backs coach Alonzo Carter, offensive line coach Josh Oglesby and wide receivers coach Bobby Wade are among the returning staff members for Arizona in 2025.