Observations From Arizona Training Camp

Arizona football is officially BACK in action and the long offseason is finally coming to an end as the Wildcats have opened up their 2025 training camp to get things geared up for the season with the team set to face Hawaii on Aug. 30 at home at 7:30 p.m. (MST) on TNT.

After an underwhelming 2024 season under Brent Brennan where Arizona went 4-8 after starting the year in the preseason AP Poll at No. 21 and ending the year losing 7 out of its last 8 games, the WIldcats made changes to the roster and their coaching staff.

Brennan revamped his coaching staff by hiring Seth Doege as the offensive coordinator and promoting Danny Gonzales to the defensive coordinating job. Plus, he was able to bring in defensive line coach Joe Salave’a, who is regarded as one of the top recruiters in the nation and a former Wildcat as well.

“When we go through a tough season like we did a year ago, you got to find a way to fix what was broken, fix what wasn’t working and put those pieces together,” Brennan said. “And part of those pieces are how we’re going to do things in terms of how we’re going to coach, what we’re going to do schematically and the other part is who are the players that are going to play those roles.”

The energy at practice was high, loud despite the team not even in full pads, or in shells at this point in time. The pace of play was a complete 180 from the previous season and matches the mindset and mentality that the coaching staff wasn’t to bring to the 2025 season.

Although there was no contact and players weren’t in shells, there were still takeaways to be made with what the media was able to see throughout the duration of the day.

Aug 31, 2024; Tucson, Arizona, USA; New Mexico wide receiver Luke Wysong (15) runs ball during second quarter at Arizona Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Aryanna Frank-Imagn Images | Aryanna Frank-Imagn Images

Three Observations

Kicking Game

At this moment, it looks like newly added kicker Ian Wagner will be the kickoff kicker with either Michael Salgado-Medina, or Tyler Prasuhn battling it out for the starting place kicking job. The two were taking PAT and field goal attempts during camp and switched off between the two of them.

Meanwhile, Wagner was being used as the holder during those kicking attempts. So, the odds are that he won’t be part of the place kicking competition at this point in time.

Receiving Blocking

In the Dino Babers offense last season, Arizona attempted multiple screen passes on the outside every single game and every single time, it resulted in either no gain, or a loss of yardage. It was rare to see the play succeed and the biggest issue with the screen game was the blocking from the receiving corps, who would get man handled in those situations.

When talking to several receivers on the team, the blocking game has come up every time and has been a point of emphasis for the group and something they have been working on. With the way Seth Doege goes about attacking a defense, the screen game could be a critical piece to the offense depending on the match up that week.

Punt Return

During the spring practice season, Arizona saw a rotation of five players fielding punts as the staff and coach Craig Naviar tested out what they had on the roster. The group was mostly receivers with Kris Hutson, Luke Wysong, Javin Whatley, Jeremiah Patterson and Ismail Mahdi receiving punts.

So far through the first couple of days in training camp, we have seen three main players back fielding punts in receivers Patterson, Whatley and Hutson getting the majority of the snaps and have been rotating as the staff figures out what they want to do.

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