'It's our best team': Transfers bolster Arizona Wildcats in potential bowl season

There’s a method to Jedd Fisch’s madness in the transfer portal.

The portal has served as an essential resource to restock rosters and fill in the gaps with experienced players at certain positions throughout college football.

To put it bluntly: Arizona had holes everywhere when Fisch finished his first season as head coach in 2021.

Coupled with notable high school standouts such as wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, who is the highest-rated signee for the UA in modern recruiting, and offensive lineman Jonah Savaiinaea, the Wildcats also attracted Pac-12 Offensive Freshman of the Year and former Washington State quarterback Jayden de Laura and tight end Tanner McLachlan in the transfer portal and became the sixth-best passing offense in college football in 2022.

A year later, the Wildcats bolstered their defense, which ranked 10th in the Pac-12 in rushing defense in 2022, by signing seven front-six defensive players: linebackers Justin Flowe (Oregon) and Daniel Heimuli (Washington), edge rushers Taylor Upshaw (Colorado) and Orin Patu (Cal), and defensive tackles Bill Norton (Georgia), Tyler Manoa (UCLA) and Sio Nofoagatoto’a (Indiana).

“We felt (that) if we didn’t get good on offense, we were never going to be able to recruit defense,” Fisch said on Friday at Pac-12 Media Day in Las Vegas. “No one was going to want to come to a team that couldn’t score. ... For us, it was a matter of saying, ‘OK, 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. ... I think that will make a huge difference in our defense.”

Arizona nickel back Treydan Stukes said the transfers have “brought some attitude to our defense that we haven’t had in the past.”

De Laura said the biggest difference between this season’s rendition of the Wildcats compared to last season is “probably the size, the speed.”

“I feel like especially our front D-line, they really bought in,” de Laura said. “Now we have guys that are over 300 pounds. That will help us out a lot.”

No kidding. Norton, the senior from Memphis who received limited playing time at Georgia, enters the season at 6-foot-6, 300 pounds; Manoa is 6-5, 310 pounds, while Nofoagatoto’a is 6-3, 315 pounds.

When Arizona entered the second half of its offseason at the conclusion of spring ball, Fisch said the Wildcats would look around the transfer portal with “eyes wide open” and are “only going to try and bring in guys that can really help us at this point in time.”

Upshaw, the son of former NFL defensive lineman Regan Upshaw, and wide receiver Montana Lemonious-Craig were two of Arizona’s three post-spring additions from Colorado via the transfer portal. The 6-4, 255-pound Upshaw is a graduate student and played in 37 games over four seasons at Michigan.

“They both came in ready to play and are going to be starters for us — or close to it. They’re going to make huge impacts for us,” Fisch said.

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Both Lemonious-Craig and Upshaw were a part of the exodus at Colorado, which had over four-dozen players leave the program so that CU head coach Deion Sanders could overhaul the roster with talent he refers to as Louis Vuitton luggage.

In three seasons at Colorado, Lemonious-Craig had 33 catches for 482 yards and five touchdowns. Most of his production happened during Colorado’s 1-11 campaign in 2022, when he hauled in 23 receptions for 359 yards and three touchdowns.

Lemonious-Craig said in May that Sanders “is doing something special at Colorado,” but the veteran wide receiver was ready for a change of scenery and be a part of a program that’s further along in the rebuilding process.

“I just felt like it was time for me to move on. ... I’ve been through two coaching changes for three different head coaches, so I just wanted some stability,” he said.

Lemonious-Craig dazzled in Colorado’s spring game and had three catches for 154 yards and two touchdowns, putting him on Arizona’s radar upon entering the transfer portal.

“I was sitting there like, ‘This guy can play!’ All of us were tuned into the spring game at Colorado and he was obviously the one that showed up and was certainly the highlight of the game,” Fisch said of Lemonious-Craig. “I was able to see that once he got into the portal.”

Fisch also noted Lemonious-Craig is “an amazing leader” and will be “taking over for Dorian Singer, so I’m expecting a lot of great things from him.”

Lemonious-Craig will assume the “Z” receiver position left behind by Singer, who transferred to USC, sending Pac-12 receptions leader Jacob Cowing, who trained at Singer’s position in the spring, back to slot receiver, with McMillan rounding out the starting receiving corps. Other receivers on the cusp of playing time include former USC commit Kevin Green Jr., true freshman Malachi Riley, redshirt freshman AJ Jones and walk-on Devin Hyatt, among others.

“It’s special over there, man, and I wanted to be a part of it,” Lemonious-Craig said. “I feel like the program is going in a great direction, the offense has a lot of firepower, and I can’t wait to be an addition to it.

“I just want to play football and win games. I’m looking forward to this opportunity over there, that’s for sure.”

Between Lemonious-Craig added to Arizona’s high-powered offense and physically imposing defensive players, “the team of ’23 is really different,” according to Fisch.

“It’s our best team,” Fisch said. “We’re not going to shy away from that. I don’t know what that means in regards to wins, but I do know what it means in regards to the type of players we have, the quality of players we have, the talent we have.

“Our guys are going to go out there and play at a very, very high level. If they play at the level that I think we’re going to play at, I think we’re going to win a lot of games this year.”