On Nov. 30, 2024, Arizona completed arguably the most disappointing season in school history by getting blown out at home by ASU. The 49-7 loss, the sixth by at least 20 points, finished off a 4-8 campaign that felt much worse.
It will have been exactly nine months since then when the Wildcats open the 2025 campaign on Saturday night at home against Hawaii. External expectations are much lower than a year ago, when the UA returned the 1-2 punch of Noah Fifita and Tetairoa McMillan and was ranked in the preseason
Associated Press Top 25.
Oddsmakers have Arizona’s win total set at 5.5 victories, and while both fans and the AZ Desert Swarm staff think it will go over that mark there’s still a lot of uncertainty about to what to expect this fall. Not internally, however.
“I can’t wait to see what this team does,” UA coach Brent Brennan said Thursday. “I think this team, we know the players better. We’re spending more time with them. We feel like that our culture is more ingrained. Guys have a much better understanding of Red Line, much better understanding of what our expectations are for them. And I think that part feels better. It definitely feels more comfortable.”
Here’s what to look for when the Wildcats battle the Rainbow Warriors to open the 2025 season:
So much new
Arizona’s season-opening depth chart indicates as many as 15 newcomers could start the opener, a sign of how much turnover the Wildcats’ roster had this offseason. Nearly 55 percent of the current team is in its first year with the program, including more than 30 transfers.
A year ago, in Brennan’s first game as coach, 15 of his 22 offensive and defensive starters were holdovers from the 2023 team that won 10 games under Jedd Fisch. On Saturday it could be as few as 10.
While Fifita will be making his 22nd consecutive start, the longest streak by a UA quarterback since Willie Tuitama started 29 straight games from 2006-08, every skill position player around him could be making their first start as a Wildcat, while on the offensive line right guard Alexander Doost is the only returning starter from a year ago.
Tight end Sam Olson, with 10 starts in 2024, has the second-most starting experience at the UA among offensive players.
Defensively, defensive back Treydan Stukes has the most career starts with 28 but he may not play as he continues to work his way back from knee surgery (same goes for offensive tackle Rhino Tapa’toutai, who will start once he’s fully healthy). That leaves safety Dalton Johnson as the most-senior member with 24 career starts, followed by defensive end Tre Smith (12), linebacker Taye Brown (11) and defensive back Genesis Smith.
All told, there are 21 players on the roster who have started at least one game for Arizona.
Informal 2024 reunion
Saturday’s game will feature the induction of two players into Arizona’s Ring of Honor: Randy Robbins and T-Mac. McMillan, a first-round pick of the Carolina Panthers in the spring, will begin his NFL career Sept. 7 in Jacksonville and a week later will have a homecoming when his team plays the Arizona Cardinals in Glendale.
McMillan won’t be the only player from last year’s team on hand Saturday night. Fellow NFL players Tyler Loop and Jonah Savaiinaea will serve as honorary captains.
“I think it’s really special that those guys want to come back,” Brennan said. “I think it speaks to the experience they had at the University of Arizona. I think it’s important when your football alumni come back, just to re-engage with the fans.”
In addition to the honorary ones, Arizona’s actual captains for the opener will be Fifita, Genesis Smith and Tre Smith and “a player to be named later,” per Brennan. Last season the Wildcats had fixed captains, which included Fifita.
A Pacific Islander party
Each home game this season has a theme, and for the opener it’s fittingly Polynesian Heritage with Hawaii in town. Both teams have plenty of players of Polynesian descent and share a former head coach in Dick Tomey who tapped into that community during his tenures.
That makes this unofficially the Tomey Bowl, though officially that distinction belongs to the rivalry between Hawaii and San Jose State, which since 2019 have played for the Dick Tomey Trophy. San Jose—led by Brennan—beat the Rainbow Warriors 35-0 in Honolulu in 2023 to retain the trophy.
Any chance another trophy could be created for Arizona/Hawaii games? Unlikely, says Brennan, seeing as the teams don’t play again until 2029 and there are no other matchups scheduled.
“I think those trophies are cool, and everyone has fun with them, and I think they’re neat things,” he said. “Obviously we have the one here, we have Territorial Cup, which is awesome. So I think those things are fun, but I think they need to be in conference. The thing needs to change hands every year.”
Don’t be surprised if Brennan is once again wearing a lei on the sidelines, a move he said “was a little bit of a lightning rod with our fan base” last season.
“For me, it’s an incredible honor,” he said. “And I know it was something there. Anytime someone of that culture honors me with giving me a lei, it is humbling. To know that I am loved and appreciated or thought highly enough for them to take the time to do that, I think is really, really special, and so I never want to disrespect that, and that’s why that was an important thing for me.”
Crowd count?
Coming off a 10-win performance, Arizona’s opener last season drew 44,748. That was down considerably from the 48,159 that attended the first game of 2023. What will the first crowd be following the disappointment of a year ago?
Since Arizona Stadium’s capacity was expanded in 1975 the smallest crowd for a season opener was 35,599 in 1982. It was 39,097 for the first home game of the Fisch era, in 2021, with the program in the middle of a 20-game losing streak.
Arizona has been pushing an “Own the Night” marketing campaign, leaning into the prevalence of late kickoffs particularly early in the season when it’s too hot during the day. Brennan is hopeful the fans will show up, considering them an important part of a winning equation.
“We cannot do it without you,” Brennan said. “Every team that kicks ass on Saturdays in the fall has a great fan base that shows up and impacts the outcome of the game everywhere. Look across the country, where are the toughest places to win? What do those records look like at the end of the year? If we can create that same atmosphere here at the University of Arizona we will own the night, and that starts on Saturday.”
