Jedd Fisch shares excitement about state of Arizona program

Arizona had a rough go in 2021 as Jedd Fisch took over the program as the Wildcats finished 1-11. Things got better last year, though, as they finished 5-7 thanks in large part to some transfer portal additions.

Now, as Fisch prepares for his third season at the helm, he thinks the program is in a good spot.

Last year, Jayden de Laura was the biggest portal acquisition after two years at Washington State and his No. 2 target, Jacob Cowing, arrived from UTEP. This offseason, the staff focused on defense as five of the six additions were on that side of the ball. That creates a good balance, and Fisch said it’s a blend of new and familiar talent.

“I’m really excited about where we are as a program,” Fisch said. “Offensively, we made a big commitment a year ago. We were coming off being a 1-11 program, really 1-23 over the course of 24 games. We felt if we didn’t get good on offense, we were never going to be able to recruit defense. No one was going to want to come to a team that couldn’t score.

“Our offensive staff, with Brennan Carroll and Jimmie Dougherty leading the way, have done an amazing job of — we’ve had the same offensive staff for all three years I’ve been here. They’ve recruited great players there. For us, it was a matter of saying, ‘Okay, now that the offense is in a good place, what can we do defensively?’ In that case, what we did was we committed to both the portal and playing young.”

Arizona returns 72% of its talent on offense this season, according to ESPN, with de Laura and Cowing leading the charge. However, the Wildcats only have 42% of the defense back from a young unit. But with some of the portal additions, including Justin Flowe — the No. 11-ranked linebacker transfer, according to the On3 Transfer Portal Rankings.

With those additions, Fisch sounds confident in another big step forward.

“Last year we played, at one point in time, six freshmen were starting on defense, true first-year college players,” Fisch said. “We were able to get those guys bigger, stronger and faster this off-season, complemented with guys like Justin Flowe, Daniel Heimuli, Tyler Manoa, Regen Terry out of Michigan, Orin Patu and some of these great players we were able to bring in. I think that will make a huge difference in our defense.”