Arizona eschewed the traditional scrimmage for a more informal “Showcase” to mark the end of its spring practice period. Saturday night saw roughly 1,500 fans hang out on one side of the field inside Arizona Stadium, partaking in a beer garden, a bounce house and a live band while checking out the Wildcats go through their final set of drills before breaking for the summer.
What they saw was a team that had spent the past month or so installing a new offense and defense while overhauling its special teams in hopes of rebounding from a 4-8 season in 2024. Head coach Brent Brennan brought in three new coordinators, in addition to 25 players from the NCAA transfer portal along with a handful of freshmen.
More newcomers will arrive at the end of May, and further additions could come from the portal—as could departures, as the spring portal window is open through Friday. Brennan and his staff are already looking forward, but not before reflecting on what was accomplished during spring ball.
“At the end of spring practice, I think we are moving in a great direction,” Brennan said. “I love where we’re at. I love watching just how committed they are to each other. I love the coaches and kind of their interaction with our player. Seeing Danny (Gonzales) and Seth (Doege) go at each other schematically and have fun with it, but still keep it super intense and super competitive.”
Asked which unit has looked better during the spring, Brennan said that’s hard to determine because “you’re not really playing football, you’re just kind of running plays.” But he felt both offense and defense had great days, which in turn led the other side to respond.
“I think the the best part about how we’re making progress is just how much the players are buying into the process and being focused,” Brennan said. “Because you can’t play if you don’t know what to do. And that’s one of those things that I think every player says they want to play. I think the coaches have done an excellent job of teaching. This building is our classroom, so to speak.”
Doege, who was brought in from Marshall to revamp an offense that was near the bottom of the Big 12 in almost every category last season, has been happy with the progress but feels there’s still a lot of work to do. One place where he’s not uncertain is at quarterback.
Noah Fifita was a big part of the 2023 team that won 10 games including the Alamo Bowl but he showed regression last season. He no longer has best friend and longtime teammate Tetairoa McMillan to throw to, yet Doege hasn’t seen that matter.
“I have the best quarterback in the league, without a doubt,” Doege said. “This dude is, he’s different. He’s picked up every single piece of information I’ve ever given him. He’s right where I want him to be. I mean, I feel like I can push it even further with him.”
Fifita called Doege “probably the best offensive coordinator I’ve ever been around,” a statement that holds even more weight considering former head coach Jedd Fisch called the offense in 2023.
Arizona’s defense, now under the guidance of Danny Gonzales, has shown flashes during the spring thanks to its mix of aggression and the ability to swarm the football. The front seven has looked particularly good according to safety Dalton Johnson, who is back for his fifth season, and the unit as a whole has benefitted from Gonzales’ approach.
“He just brings this energy, just this mindset that we just have to have as a defense,” Johnson said. “And so he’s really trying to instill that into our heads, and he’s doing a great job. Learning his defense has been fun this spring.”
Preseason camp will begin in late July, and when that gets underway another crop of newcomers will be on the roster. There also will be some players missing who were around during the spring, a byproduct of the “ever-changing” college football world thanks to the portal.
“We’re still in the portal window, I don’t know how that’s going to work out,” Brennan said. “We still have freshmen, incoming freshmen, coming in. We’re still recruiting players right now. The easiest thing to say is the roster is not set as of today.”
Doege said he’d be interested in adding an interior offensive lineman from the portal to offset the loss of Georgia Tech transfer Jordan Brown, who is out an extended period of time with an upper body injury. He’s also open to adding another tight end, though he did identify junior Tyler Powell as the most-improved player on his side of the ball.
Defensively, Gonzales said he’s happy with his top 15 but wouldn’t mind adding more depth.
“We’ve got two (JUCO) kids coming up front in Zac Siulepa and Ezra Funa that’ll be here in June, that will help with that depth,” Gonzales said. “I said, coming into this back in January, if we find seven to nine linemen to play, we found seven to nine that are good enough to compete in this conference and this level.
“We have some pieces coming in. We don’t (want to) count on any high school kids, but I would tell you that probably two or three high school kids are going to play on this football team. And nobody’s closing the door on the portal thing yet. So if we have a domino fall, then we’ll have to find a way to replace whatever that domino is.”