Talk is cheap. But what else did Jedd Fisch have?
When Fisch took over as Arizona’s coach in December 2020, the Wildcats had lost 12 consecutive games. Fisch faced many challenges, none bigger than trying to change the mindsets of 110 impressionable 18- to 22-year-olds — many of whom, frankly, had become used to losing.
Fisch asked them to “trust the process.” He has said that so many times lately that you couldn’t help but double-check his résumé: Was Fisch ever on the payroll of the Philadelphia 76ers at some point, and we just missed it?
Fisch also has implored his players to have a “next-play mentality.” Whether the previous play was bad or good, flush it and move on. It’s another way of trying to scrub the past — to eliminate the woe-is-us, “here we go again” mentality that had pervaded the program.
Those sayings carry value. But that value diminishes over time when it isn’t supported by results.
That’s why Arizona’s season-opening victory over San Diego State meant so much. Yes, it’s only one game. But the Wildcats needed that game to validate all their hard work — and to put substance behind Fisch’s words.
“What showed up to me the most … from the film and the TV copy and being on the sideline, was that our players bought into our culture,” said Fisch, whose team hosts Mississippi State in the home opener at 8 p.m. Saturday.
“We talk all the time about trusting the process. We talk about playing with passion, loving your teammates, embracing the grind and play the next play. I kept hearing our guys say, ‘Next play, next play.’ Kept seeing our guys pick each other up.
“It was hot out there. If you listened to our players’ quotes, they all talked about how embracing the grind all summer long helped prepare them for the game.”
Jedd Fisch’s Wildcats finished off SDSU last week, showing a killer instinct that evaded them in a half-dozen tight games a year ago.
False positives
Critically, the Wildcats finished the game and came out on top. That point cannot be emphasized enough.
Although the final scores didn’t necessarily show it, Arizona played a lot of competitive games in 2021. The Wildcats were within one possession or held the lead entering the fourth quarter in seven of their 11 losses.
Something negative invariably happened — whether it was an injury, a penalty or a turnover — and Arizona almost never fully recovered. The lone exception was the UA’s lone win over Cal in which the Wildcats overcame multiple injuries, penalties and interceptions.
That victory carried enormous significance because it ended Arizona’s losing streak, which had reached an unfathomable 20 games. Still, outsiders scoffed at it, citing the Golden Bears’ own set of problems — 24 players missing because of COVID-19 protocols.
Arizona played extremely well the following week against Utah but lost. The Wildcats would lose their final three games. They couldn’t build on the win over Cal.
But the offseason was bountiful. Talent arrived via the recruiting class of 2022 and the NCAA transfer portal. The Wildcats were a different team. Could they produce a different result?
Recent openers had yielded a series of near-misses and false positives. Arizona lost by five in the 2018 opener against BYU, by seven in the ’19 opener against Hawaii, by four in the ’20 opener against USC and by eight in the ’21 opener against BYU.
Everyone came away from the last two feeling encouraged.
The Wildcats didn’t win, but they played well! They battled! They’re so close!
They weren’t. Only once did Arizona follow one of those four losses with a win — a 65-41 triumph over NAU in 2019. The other games ended in defeats by 27, 17 and 24 points.
Who knows what will happen against Mississippi State. But this much is certain: Arizona will carry a 1-0 record into that game. There was nothing fluky about that win either. The Wildcats led from start to finish, and they outgained the Aztecs nearly 2-1.
“I really believe that our guys needed to find a way to get to 1-0,” Fisch said afterward. “We asked them to have confidence without evidence and trust the process.
“Those guys embraced what we asked them to do: come to work; practice really, really, really hard; condition all summer long when coaches aren’t around; run player-run practices and do a great job with them; and then be able to go out there, go on the road against a very good team that went 12-2 last year and play the way we did.”
Athletic director Dave Heeke said last week's win highlights "the great work that our coaches have done, the incredible recruiting that's been done and the effort, let's not forget, of the players — and then to go out and perform, you saw what’s starting to be a very good football program."
‘We have to do it again’
Fisch’s boss, Dave Heeke, watched it all unfold at Snapdragon Stadium. Like Fisch, Heeke tried to avoid attaching too much meaning to the victory. But Heeke, having worked side by side with Fisch over the past 20 months, understood its worth, especially for the players. The win also was a sign that the investment the athletic department had made in the football program — spending about $15 million to refurbish and upgrade facilities — was paying off.
“Anytime you’re trying to build a program ... to see those tangible results, to be able to build off of those, is important,” Heeke said. “We were all anxious to see where our football program was coming off of last season. The great work that our coaches have done, the incredible recruiting that’s been done and the effort, let’s not forget, of the players — and then to go out and perform, you saw what’s starting to be a very good football program.”
The key phrase here is “starting to be.” It’s consistent with Fisch’s outlook, which hasn’t wavered: This is a long-term project. He’s seeking sustained success.
Fisch’s answer to a question about the UA’s red-zone breakthrough against SDSU reflected that idea.
“That was one week,” he said. “We need to absolutely get better this week. We have to do it again. And then we have to do it again. And at the end of the season, we’ll evaluate how we’ve done in the red zone, how we’ve done in turnovers, how we’ve done in penalties.
“But right now, it’s just a building process. We’re just trying to get better today than we were yesterday. We want to do everything we can to make our last game our worst game and continue to try to build this program to where we can sustain a good, competitive football game week in and week out. That’s our goal.”
