Why Arizona should be getting more hype this offseason

Arizona Football is coming off their best season in a quarter century after going 10-3. Now, while they lost their head coach that led that year, they have enough back in their new league to justify having more interest around them according to Greg McElroy.

McElroy discussed the Wildcats during a recent episode of ‘Always College Football’. He noted a pair of reasons about them that suggested that they could be great again in 2024. For one, they kept several key contributors from last year’s team.

“They did lose their coach but, when Jedd Fisch left from Arizona to go and become the head coach of the Washington Huskies, we kind of sat there and we looked and said, ‘Man, well, they’re going to lose all of their guys’. That’s what happens when coaches leave or they take comparable jobs. They take all their guys with them and just pick up right where they left off,” McElroy explained. “The problem is, for Jedd Fisch, he wasn’t able to bring Tetairoa McMillan with him. He wasn’t able to bring Noah Fifita with him.”

“When you look at what they have coming back, they could very easily make another run,” said McElroy.

For two, McElroy thinks they have a slate in their new conference that could lend itself to several wins again. That’s opposed to what they had last year that they still managed to get 10 victories from in the Pac-12.

“Arizona is now part of the Big 12. Still trying to continue to get comfortable with that but we are here and we are there,” noted McElroy,” McElroy said. “If you look at their tough games? They’re at Kansas State, they’re at Utah. Other than that, the schedule is gettable for the Arizona Wildcats.”

“If you look at the Big 12 right now, had the 12-team playoff been in existence last year and had Arizona been in the Big 12, do you realize that Arizona would have received a first-round bye last year? That’s right. A first-round bye last year would have been given to the Arizona Wildcats,” added McElroy. “It’s crazy to think about but, granted, things have changed quite a bit.”

Arizona has a lot of new to work with under Brent Brennan out in the Big 12. By the end of the season, though, McElroy thinks they’re a team that we could realize that we should have been talking about sooner.

“A team that we’re not talking a whole lot about but we might fast forward to season’s end and they very well could find themselves back in the playoff mix and back in the driver’s seat potentially in a Big 12 Conference that is certainly up for grabs,” said McElroy.