Head Coach: Brent Brennan is entering his 2nd season as the head coach of the Wildcats with a 4-8 record. Brennan has a lot of history with this program and is familiar with it. Unfortunately even though there were high preseason expectations, they had a disappointing season in his first year as the circumstances of losing so many players proved to be too much. This year begins the true test of how it will go.
Program Outlook: Arizona football can just never seem to catch a break. There’s been many times they found some success in their history but it just doesn’t stick. 1993 was a 10 win season under Dick Tomey, they opened 1994 with high expectations, including an SI newsletter that had them preseason #1 but finished 8-4. 1998 was the best year in program history, they went 12-1, finished 4th in the nation but immediately fell to 6-6 in 1999. The Mike Stoops era brought constant promising starts and late season meltdowns, Rich Rod got them to a Fiesta Bowl but couldn’t keep momentum. Now Jedd Fisch led Arizona to a 10 win season and late hot streak that gave them so much promise only for a late coaching cycle to take him and several players away. Following a disappointing 4-8 season, Arizona must find their way back once again.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: Arizona quietly returns a lot, they rank 22nd in the country returning 64.5% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. The Wildcats also hit the portal hard to help with some key issues from last year. Key players starts with QB Noah Fifita who was an emerging star with his play at the end of 2023 but really took his lumps other than 2024. It was a season that both gave him things to work on, as well as the team. Fifita had no run game to work with last year, the Wildcats addressed that by adding former Texas State RB Ismail Mahdi. Tetairoa McMillan was essentially the only reliable receiver and now he’s gone so Arizona added Kris Hutson (Washington State), Luke Wysong (New Mexico) and Tre Spivey (Kansas State.) All 3 are players who bring their own element and will give Fifita more to work with. The defense will be led by a mix of returnees and transfers. Key players will include LB Blake Gotcher who comes over from Northwestern State, he amassed a whooping 162 tackles last year. The question marks will include the offensive line, it was miserable last year and their best lineman Jonah Savaiinaea is off to the NFL, they brought in some transfers but it needs to jell quickly.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: The Big 12 often goes in unpredictable ways but I feel safe saying that Arizona’s schedule is not favorable. The Wildcats open non-conference play with manageable games, Hawaii had a disappointing season last year but returns a lot of production and Weber State was disappointing at the FCS level going 4-8 last year. Arizona and Kansas State had a series scheduled when the Big 12 move happened so as a result, Arizona essentially plays 10 conference games. They currently appear to have drawn a lot of the toughest teams in the Big 12 or teams that also seem poised for improvement. This schedule is likely to make getting more wins difficult.
Final Thoughts: Arizona is a fascinating team to monitor this year, the masses were excited about the Fifita and McMillan combination last year but overlooked how many players they lost when Fisch left. This offseason sort of feels the opposite, the masses have given up on this team and haven’t paid much attention to some of the additions they added to shore up the issues they had last year. It’s still a tougher road to the top than it was to the bottom, making a bowl game must be the goal here and the schedule won’t make that easy.
Welcome to Updog Sports Talk 
Leave a comment