Arizona Will Bring New Mindset for the 2025 Season
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The expectations for Arizona football coming into the 2024 season were high. The team started the year ranked No. 21 in the Preseason AP Poll with a good number of returning players and stars Fifita and Tetairoa McMillan leading the way.
But, things didn’t go that way for Arizona and new head coach Brent Brennan as the team struggled on both sides of the ball and couldn’t get any consistent play going throughout the year.
The Wildcats finished 4-8 on the year and ended the season on a two-game losing streak and lost seven of the last eight games.
Brennan made it clear during media day that he understood some of the issues that faced Arizona and how the team fell far below the expectations of the season.
“I think it's night and day. I really think as I'm looking at it, one of the challenges when we first got there was the portal created by Jedd's departure. So you have a 30 day portal there. Then you're getting ready for spring practice, then you got another portal at the end of spring practice, he said.
“I felt like we spent the first six months on the job kissing everyone's ass, asking them to stay. It was just a horrible foundation for what we're trying to get done there. This second year, we just feel much more stable in it. I think because of that, like a lot of the players chosen to stay, our retention has been high. And then the acquisition of new talent has been really positive. So we're in a great spot.”
In order to get things back in the right direction, Brennan changed things up on his coaching staff and added talent through the transfer portal and incoming freshmen class.
During the Wildcats’ local media day, Brennan talked about the upcoming seasons and what he learned from the previous year and one of the topics that he brought up was attention to detail and focusing on what is in front of you by being in the moment.
“As we got into it rather it was a single drill, whether it was in the practice environment and even in the games we won, it didn’t feel good to the players,” Brennan said. “We didn’t win by enough. We didn’t play well enough on this side of the ball. We didn’t play well enough. “...And when we did lose a game, it was incredibly devastating. Working with our team, talking to our team and trying to pull us out of the funk that it put us in just because we had been so focused on something so far down the road.”
Brennan mentioned that the only way to get right and get back on track and not have that happen again is to do the work that is required right now and don’t look past what is in front of you.
Like we said before, Arizona had a lot of high expectations during the 2024 season but as the year went on, it felt like things spiraled out of control.
It will be interesting to see what the team looks like in training camp and if there is a higher level to the details than this time last year. But, it is clear that the team understands what they have to do to get things going in the right direction as a unit for the 2025 season.
Please be sure to let us know what you think of Brennan's approach to the 2025 season with the team focusing on what is in front of them. To do so, follow us on our X account by clicking on the link.
Troy Hutchison grew up attending Arizona athletic events, which gave him a unique perspective and knowledge of the athletic department's rich history. He attended UA and began covering the Wildcats in 2018. As the Arizona Wildcats Beat Writer on SI, he is set to deliver wall-to-wall coverage to give fans an in-depth perspective.
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