Arizona football entering new chapter in 2025

Building a lasting team identity and culture is never easy, but the Arizona Wildcats are revamping their football program after head coach Brent Brennan’s first year on the job fell flat.

Brennan is leading a reshuffled staff featuring new coordinators on both sides of the ball.

Brennan hired former Marshall offensive coordinator Seth Doege to helm the offense and promoted special teams and linebackers coach Danny Gonzales to the defensive coordinator spot.

One thing is clear: there is excitement from the players who have bought into Brennan’s vision. It’s something to be said for the 2024 season’s failures that the team is returning what ESPN estimated as 66% of its production, a top-20 mark across college football.

fire us all the way up, @thenoah_fifita1 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/2R0kxm4xtp

— Arizona Football (@ArizonaFBall) July 9, 2025

Talkin’ first day of fall camp with Coach Brennan! 🏈🗣️ pic.twitter.com/XEENzY0LFB

— Arizona Athletics (@AZATHLETICS) July 30, 2025

New scheme from Arizona football OC Seth Doege

After going 4-8 in 2024 with offensive coordinator Dino Babers, who lost play-calling duties midseason, Arizona hired a new coordinator in Doege. He’s a former quarterback for Texas Tech (2008-12), hailing from the Mike Leach coaching tree.

Doege found success running his Air Raid offense for Marshall in his first season as its offensive coordinator. Marshall averaged 31.8 points per game on offense (37th in the nation) and 382.8 total yards per game.

The 2025 season with that new offense will be a crucial one for quarterback Noah Fifita in his fourth season at Arizona.

Fifita showed more than promise in his first season as a starter in 2023, throwing for 2,869 yards with 25 touchdowns and only six interceptions after he moved into the starting group due to an injury to quarterback Jayden de Laura.

But in 2024, when Brennan took over for Jedd Fisch, Fifita’s stats took a step back. He threw for 2,958 yards, 18 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and a completion percentage of 60.5%, down 11.9 percentage points from 2023.

Although Fifita may be primed for a big statistical year in a pass-heavy Air Raid offense, he’ll now be without receiver Tetairoa McMillan, who was selected eighth overall in the 2025 NFL Draft by the Carolina Panthers.

“Yeah, it’s like (Fifita’s) been through it for years now,” Doege told the media after Day 1 of training camp. “We’ve spent a lot of time together. … He’s operating at a high level. And like you said, it’s the very first day, but that was expected from him, too, because of the work we put in, the work he’s put in on his own and the work he’s put in over the summer.”

McMillan’s presence will be missed, but Arizona bolstered its offense during the transfer portal with the additions of running back Ismail Mahdi and receivers Tre Spivey III, Luke Wysong, Kris Hutson and more.

Arizona is bringing back several contributors from 2024, such as running back Kedrick Reescano (359 rushing yards), receiver Chris Hunter (323 yards and three touchdowns) and tight end Keyan Burnett (217 receiving yards).

Mahdi, who was a transfer over the offseason from Texas State, had a strong last season where he totaled 1,186 scrimmage yards and six combined touchdowns. Both Mahdi and Reescano could form a dynamic backfield tandem for the Wildcats in 2025.

“We needed more speed, and I think we’ve added that in the offseason,” Brennan said during Big 12 Media Day in July. “We’ve added five guys that run 10.6, 10.5, 10.4. We just needed more heat. T-Mac (Tetairoa McMillan) was incredibly productive, what a great player, a great human being. We’re so excited for what he’s going to do in the NFL, but I’m excited to see what our receiver group does as a collective in the Seth Doege offense. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Fresh defensive mindset under new DC Danny Gonzales

Gonzales, a former head coach of New Mexico from 2020 to 2023, is excited for the opportunity to head the defense and believes his prior experience as head coach will help ease some of the workload from Brennan.

“Oh, I’m a hell of a lot better assistant coach than I was prior to my opportunity being a head coach,” Gonzales said in a press conference last week. “I can do a lot of things and take a lot of things off of Brent’s plate that I know he has to deal with, and I can keep him from having to deal with them because I have little ideas. I know it’s his football team and we’ve got 10 coaches on this staff and he trusts us to do a job and we have a great responsibility in getting Brent Brennan a second contract and keeping Brent Brennan here as long as he can possibly or wants to be here.”

Gonzales will be implementing his aggressive 3-3-5 defense in Arizona, something he has experience using in four other schools, including Arizona State, where he had defensive coordinator duties in 2018 and 2019.

Throughout training camp last week, Brennan and Gonzales spoke about two qualities they want to see from the Wildcats this season: toughness and violence.

Gonzales’ system is designed to be aggressive and adapt to the checks made by the opposing offense. The system is already as attacking as it gets, but he wants it to be a reflection of the players.

“Violence, hit that bag as hard as you can,” Gonzales said. “Pop up off the ground because it’s OK to get knocked down. It’s a sin to stay down. Everybody’s going to get knocked down. And if you’re playing hard, that’s OK. Get your tail up. Find the next thing. Hit it, too.”

Brennan said he hopes to see his team develop toughness in all aspects of the game. And it starts in camp.