Arizona's Noah Fifita Make Major Award List

Arizona and QB Noah Fifita are gearing up for the 2025 season as the team tries to turn things around after an underwhelming 2024 season.

Oct 19, 2024; Tucson, Arizona, USA; Arizona Wildcats quarterback Noah Fifita (11) walks down Wildcat Walk before game against Colorado Buffaloes at Arizona Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Aryanna Frank-Imagn Images | Aryanna Frank-Imagn Images

As we get closer to the kickoff of the 2025 college football season, we’ve seen numerous awards name players to their preseason watch lists with several Arizona players making those said lists.

Now, Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita has been added to another watch list with the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm naming the four-year QB to their list of highly talented passers to watch for the upcoming 2025 season.

At the beginning of training camp, Arizona head coach Brent Brennan spoke to the media breaking down what he wanted to see from his team, areas in which the WIldcats need to improve and incoming freshmen to watch as they dip their feet into the waters that is college football.

Nov 23, 2024; Fort Worth, Texas, USA; Arizona Wildcats quarterback Noah Fifita (11) throws a pass against the TCU Horned Frogs in the first quarter at Amon G. Carter Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-Imagn Images | Tim Heitman-Imagn Images

One thing that he addressed was how the team got caught in a spiral where things go out of control and even the wins didn’t seem to have the same spirit and thrill that you would think a victory would bring.

Brennan went on to talk about how the team became focused on the overall outcome and not what was in front of them from week-to-week causing the spiral to occur in the first place.

One thing that would’ve been useful during this time for Arizona would’ve been having a voice on the field that could calm the team down and get them to focus on what was right in front of them instead of the overall picture.

Part of fixing that issue has been to challenge Fifita to become more of a vocal leader on the field. He had been a great leader off the field but didn’t really have a commanding voice on the field.

Noah Fifita has been named to the Golden Arm preseason watchlist 🎯 pic.twitter.com/P7UO2LRsOJ

— Arizona Football (@ArizonaFBall) August 19, 2025

Both Brennan and Seth Doege were very open about wanting him to become that on field leader and how it would be for the betterment of the team to get back on track.

Throughout camp, Fifita took the challenge head on and became more of that leader the coaches were looking for on the field.

When talking to the media, Doege stated that there were times the offense wasn’t clicking and he went to go talk to the first-team unit but when he got close to the huddle, Fifita told him that he had things under control and would get everything in order.

After that, the offense would have its best drive of the day and started to click the rest of camp. This is exactly what the coaches have been looking for from Fifita as a leader in the huddle.

While watching training camp, you can see Fifita being more confident in that leadership role and helping his teammates on the details of the offense.

He has always been a leader off the field but is clearly growing into the leadership role that all starting quarterbacks need in order to get to the next level.

There was a play where receiver Kris Hutson dropped a pass in the end zone while running red zone plays and you could tell he was down. Fifita went over to him on the sideline and was talking to him and loving on him to get him ready for the rest of practice.

The next time the Wildcats were running red zone drills, Fifita hit Hutson in the end zone with him making a phenomenal toe tapping catch for six.

It takes a true leader and teammate to help guys turn things around and Fifita is showing that ability now.

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