Arizona is a basketball school, first and foremost, then a triathlon school thanks to three consecutive national championships. Other sports, like baseball and softball, also have a strong reputation for their past titles and successes.
Football? Not so much.
Arizona has four seasons in its nearly 130-year history that have won 10 or more games, most recently in 2023. The best record in program history is 12-1 in 1998, while there were also 10-win seasons in 1993 and 2014.
The Wildcats can’t get to
10 wins on Saturday, but they can take a huge step toward national relevance—as well as spots in the Big 12 title game and College Football Playoff—when they host unbeaten No. 2 Utah. It’s one of four games on the Week 11 schedule pitting teams in the latest CFP rankings, though the UA (7-2, 4-2) dropped one spot after its miraculous comeback win over TCU.
Fox has made this game its top priority, sending its No. 1 broadcast crew to Tucson along with the Big Noon Kickoff pregame show. Throw in a warmup event featuring Rob Gronkowski, which starts at 6:30 a.m. MT, and it’s going to be a busy day around campus.
“When I think about the way that thing is kicking off, with Big Noon in the morning, I think it’s appropriate that we consider what a wise man once said: ‘You can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning,’” UA coach Brent Brennan said Thursday. “Roll that thing, run that race, Redline that thing all the way through kickoff through the end of the game.”
Arizona is seeking its first win over a Top 5 team since beating No. 2 Oregon in 2014, its first at home since knocking off the second-ranked Ducks in 2007. Utah (9-0, 6-0) is off to its best start since 2008 and can lock up a Big 12 title game appearance (and probably a CFP berth) with a win.
Here’s what to watch for when the Wildcats and Utes meet at 5:30 p.m. MT in Casino Del Sol Stadium:
Quarterback play
A pair of Heisman Trophy hopefuls will go toe to toe in this one, but only one of the quarterbacks has a legitimate shot of winning the award. That’s Utah’s Devon Dampier, who in the most recent odds posted by FanDuel Sportsbook is +1500 which is tied for 4th-best, while Noah Fifita is much farther than at +22500.
Dampier is having a monster season for the Utes, with 2,053 passing yards and 20 touchdowns to go with 482 rushing yards and seven scores. Last week in the win over rival BYU he ran it 20 times for 89 yards and two TDs and also threw two TD passes.
“The thing that Devin doesn’t get credit for, Devin is an elite thrower, and people think that he can’t throw because of all the different things he does with the triple option, all those things,” UA defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales said. “Devin can throw the damn football.”
Gonzales should know, because he recruited Dampier to New Mexico out of the Phoenix area, the only Division I school to offer him. Dampier played in 10 games for Gonzales in 2023 but only started once, with the Lobos going 4-8 and Gonzales getting fired.
“If Devin Dampier started as a true freshman 12 games, I probably wouldn’t sitting up here on the stage,” Gonzales said.
Dampier torched the Wildcats for 390 yards of total offense and five TDs in Brennan’s first game as head coach in 2024, when before Gonzales took over the defense.
This will be the first time Morgan Scalley will face Fifita as Utah’s head coach, but he’s got plenty of memories of previous meetings when he was the Utes’ defensive coordinator. Fifita’s first career TD pass came in Salt Lake City as a true freshman in 2022, and he has wins over Utah in 2023 and 2024.
“Noah Fifita’s had our number the last two times we’ve played them,” Scalley said.
This will be Fifita’s 17th time starting against a ranked opponent. He’s only won seven of those games but has thrown 29 TD passes and topped the 300-yard mark five times including last month when he threw for 417 yards in the loss at Texas Tech.
Fifita could be set up for another big game if the offensive line can give him time. Utah plays mostly man coverage but brings a lot of pressure, getting credited by Pro Football Focus with 154 pressures in nine games. Arizona’s O-line has allowed 84, per PFF, but 29 have come in the last two games.
“If they’re going to play man coverage, we got to beat our man on the perimeter,” offensive coordinator Seth Doege said.
The secondary situation
Last season Arizona started nine different defensive backs in the five secondary positions, but that number is misleading because it includes two who filled in during the Holiday Bowl after the NFL-bound trio of Dalton Johnson, Genesis Smith and Treydan Stukes sat out. Stukes also missed the first two games of 2025 coming back from knee surgery, but for the bulk of the fall it was the same five back there contributing to one of the best pass defenses in the country.
It’s entirely possible that against Utah the Wildcats’ secondary will include no more than two players who began the season as starters, with one potentially making their second career start.
Injuries have compounded at cornerback and safety, with Jay’Vion Cole missing the last two games, Cam Chapa missing last week and both Malcolm Hartzog Jr. and Quinn Olson getting hurt against TCU. All four are listed as questionable on the availability report.
If Hartzog can’t go it likely means Dajon Hinton will start at slot corner. His only previous start came in the Holiday Bowl, as a true freshman, and 14 plays into the game he suffered his third torn ACL.
“When they did the surgery, they said it’s going to be 12 months, and he’ll be lucky to be available for spring ball in ’27,” Gonzales said. “And that kid said no, and he worked his tail off every single day.”
Hinton made his season debut on special teams at Texas Tech, then when Hartzog got hurt in the 1st half against TCU he stepped in and played 39 defensive snaps and six on special teams.
Getting Cole back would be huge because he could return to his place as CB1, which for the past two games has been Tyrese Boss. Boss has done mostly well while Dwight Bootle II, who was a starter the first two games this season, is coming off a game where he was flagged three times for pass interference including twice in the end zone.
Gonzales has defended Bootle’s play, saying two of those plays were mistakes but otherwise he felt the performance was solid.
“He’s got the ability to do it, it’s just going to come with experience,” Gonzales said. “He’s going to get better with every single down he plays.”
Money down madness
Utah and Arizona are two of the best in the Big 12, as well as the country, in converting on third down. The Utes get the 1st down 53.1 percent of the time, Arizona 50.4 percent, but the Wildcats’ efficiency of late has dipped.
The UA is 13 of 33 on third down the last two games, with many of those failures coming because it fell behind the sticks early. It is 15 for 56 when needing 7-plus yards, 5 of 28 needing 10 or more.
The Utes allow conversions on 36 percent of opposing third downs, compared to 39.1 for Arizona’s defense. The difference is that Arizona has allowed 24 first downs when the opponent needs to gain 7-plus including 10 on 3rd and 10 or longer.
Crowd concerns
This will be the biggest crowd of the season to date, but whether it manages to be the first sellout since Homecoming 2024 remains to be seen. It won’t be due to a lack of effort by the school and athletic department to promote the game, and the favorable start time along with a Top 5 opponent also won’t be the reason.
“This is the game to show up for your alma mater, to show up for your university, or show up for this city, and how this institution is wired into the city of Tucson,” Brennan said Monday.
The largest “announced” crowd this fall has been 45,477 for last month’s Homecoming win over Iowa State, while the other four games have had announced tallies between 40,129 for the opener and 43,760 for Cincinnati on Family Weekend.
The last time a Top 10 opponent played in Tucson, No. 7 Washington in 2023, the UA had the first of two sellouts that season.
