[3] Archibald was an assistant coach under Jerry Tarkanian at Long Beach State and UNLV, and also had brief stints at Cal Poly–SLO and USC.
When Jerry Pimm departed for UC Santa Barbara,[4] Archibald was promoted and led the Utes for six years (1983–1989), with a 98–86 (.533) record.
[8][9] Succeeded by Rick Majerus at Utah, Archibald was an assistant at Arizona State University (1989–1994), then at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and later, the director of basketball operations.
[10] After a long battle with prostate cancer, Archibald died at his Provo home at age 52 in 1997.
Archibald's son-in-law is Mark Pope, who played collegiately at Washington and Kentucky and became head coach at Kentucky in 2024 after stops at Utah Valley and BYU; Archibald recruited Pope while an assistant at Arizona State.