Second time has to be the charm, as there may not be a third. That is probably what second year head coach Brent Brennan is thinking entering the 2025 season. After stepping to the podium at Big 12 Media Days in Frisco, the Arizona coach was already addressing the elephant in the room. “Obviously, last fall was unacceptable for our staff, our program and our university, and we’ve been busy fixing that ever since,” Brennan said. For a fanbase that had every reason to believe the Arizona Wildcats were primed to build on a breakout 2023, the 4–8 nosedive that followed was deflating. With star QB1 Noah Fifita back, a promising new playcaller onboard, and a program-wide recalibration underway, the pressure is squarely on Brennan to prove last season was an aberration.

Because truth be told, the 2023 Wildcats weren’t supposed to unravel like they did. The roster had name-brand talent. Tetairoa McMillan, Takario Davis, Jonah Savaiinaea. You could sell jerseys with that core. But football, especially in the desert, is won and lost in the trenches, and when Arizona’s offensive line started to fall apart, everything else went with it. Seven different starting O-line combinations later, Brennan was left relying on third-stringers and freshmen just to field a unit. As expected, it showed. The cohesion and timing that defined Arizona’s 2023 offense evaporated like sweat in Tucson.

“So, I think the roster 1 through 20 was pretty solid and then 21 through 85 because of the transfer portal window and not having the ability to recruit. Arizona’s depth or lack thereof, like the lack of depth, it really showed when they started to get banged up,” Wildcats beat writer Justin Spears explained. The Wildcats didn’t just get injured, they got exposed. The drop-off was steep. “There was no sense of urgency. There was no snappiness to it. Everything just seemed slow and it looked so hard.” And the numbers backed it up. Arizona finished 2–7 in league play. The air that had filled the program after the 2023 high faded fast.

Even Brent Brennan knew something drastic had to change. So out went Dino Babers, and in came new OC/ QB coach Seth Doege. A Mike Leach disciple and the former Texas Tech gunslinger who’d quietly built one of the Sun Belt’s best offenses at Marshall. It’s not just the résumé that intrigues. It’s the philosophy. Doege doesn’t just copy-paste a system; he adapts. “People think, okay, Mike Leach, Texas Tech, this guy loves to sling the football, right? Well, when he was at Marshall, the Thundering Herd had more rushing yards than passing yards because that was just the players that they had.” That flexibility paired with Brennan’s urgency is what Arizona desperately needed.

Doege’s pairing with Noah Fifita has already sparked excitement in Tucson. There’s tempo, rhythm, and for the first time in over a year, actual flow. “The ball’s getting out of Noah’s hands quickly. The offense seems to have, you know, kind of a rhythm to it and it just seems different,” Spears noted. It’s still early, but the difference is tangible. There’s movement pre-snap. There’s spacing. And there’s a level of passing comfort that was simply nonexistent last year. Even with McMillan and Savaiinaea no longer in the lineup, this looks and feels like a new offense, not just a repackaged version of last year’s broken one.

“I am really excited about our team so far,” Brennan said. “We have the kind of aggressive, explosive offense that we want to play at UofA. … I also think about Noah Fifita being a year older, a year more mature. I think the consistency of our coaching staff, our leadership and the team knowing what my expectations are and how we’re going to do things going forward. I think it is a lot cleaner right now than it was a year ago.” That clarity is important. There’s no margin for murkiness in Year 2 of a rebuild that could go either way. Because here’s the hard truth: Brennan may have been better off last year if all the stars had left. Expectations would’ve reset.

Brent Brennan bets big on his QB-OC pairing

Can Arizona pull off a turnaround like their desert rivals at ASU? That’s a high bar, but the Wildcats think they’ve got the pieces to make some noise. It all starts with QB1 Noah Fifita.

The same Fifita who was once a hot target for BYU. He’s coming off a rocky 2024 season where his interception total doubled from six to twelve and his No. 1 target, McMillan, is now gone. But don’t write him off just yet. The Wildcats still have a nucleus to build around. Receivers Chris Hunter and Jeremiah Patterson return, and so does tight end Keyan Burnett. With more experience, a retooled offense, and better health, Arizona’s hoping to see the old Noah again. Just with a shinier new system around him.

Brent Brennan took the blame for last year’s struggles head-on. “The step back for Noah Fifita was my fault, not his,” Brennan said. “We didn’t do a good enough job running the football and we didn’t do a good enough job protecting him.” Now? Brennan thinks they’ve corrected the course.