Saturday Storylines: UA senior class prepares for final hurrah at Arizona Stadium

Five storylines for No. 17 Arizona's afternoon matchup with No. 22 Utah on Saturday in Tucson.

Arizona will pay homage to its senior class leading to kickoff, but Senior Day in today's college athletics landscape can be tricky. 

It's unclear how many players will be honored on Saturday. Some will be full-fledged seniors; others might be juniors or redshirt juniors who are graduating this semester. 

“Some will walk. Some will walk and return. Some will walk and graduate. Some have graduated and will re-walk. Some have walked and won’t walk. Some haven’t walked and won’t walk," said Arizona coach Jedd Fisch. "So don’t ask me who’s walking because I don’t know. I know we have a lot of people who are and some that aren’t, but we’re working through that right now.”

Here are some notable Wildcats who are participating in the pregame Senior Day festivities and a look at what they've done at the UA: 

Left tackle Jordan Morgan: The 6-5, 325-pound Morgan logged 35 starts at left tackle since his freshman season in 2019. 

Running back Michael Wiley: The versatile Wiley has the most all-time receiving yards by an Arizona (1,047) running back. Wiley has also rushed for 1,603 yards and scored 23 all-purpose touchdowns.

Wide receiver Jacob Cowing: After transferring from UTEP, the Maricopa product led the Pac-12 in receptions (85), which is the third-most in program history behind Bobby Wade and Dennis Northcutt. Cowing is currently second in the Pac-12 with 72 receptions this season. 

Tight end Tanner McLachlan: The Alberta, Canada, native is three catches away from matching his season reception total (34) from last season, which is the second-most by an Arizona tight end behind Rob Gronkowski. 

Defensive end Taylor Upshaw: The former Michigan Wolverine is fourth in the Pac-12 with 7.5 sacks.

Other seniors include punter Kyle Ostendorp, running back DJ Williams, defensive tackle Sio Nofoagatoto'a, defensive end Orin Patu and defensive tackle Bill Norton (although he could return for one more season in 2024), among others. Arizona will also honor its senior walk-ons. 

"Everybody on our team has to fulfill their one-110th," Fisch said. "They bring something to the program or they wouldn't be here." 

Running back Nazar Bombata, who's the longest-tenured Wildcat, has been with the team since 2018, then-head coach Kevin Sumlin's first season. Bombata was recently given a full-ride scholarship for the fall semester, Fisch revealed. 

Long snapper Seth MacKellar has been Arizona's primary long snapper since 2019 and brings a "sense of calmness and a sense of consistency every single day," Fisch said.  

"The players look up to him, the players like him and they respect the type of people these guys are," Fisch said.  

He added: "Everybody on our team is going to bring something to the table or they wouldn't be on our team. They all matter. Some of them get more accolades. Some of them get more playing time.

"Some of them get more ink, let's call it, but in the end, if we don't snap the ball on that final field goal (at Colorado) appropriately and at the right spot, we wind up going into overtime last Saturday."

'Hard-nosed' Coleman takes baton from Wiley

The Arizona Stadium sidelines will have the past, present and future UA running back greats. The past: Ka'Deem Carey, a two-time All-American and Tucson native who will serve as the final honorary captain of the season. Carey is the program's all-time leading rusher.

The present: Wiley and Williams, who will both run out of eligibility after this season. 

Then there's the future, which is also the present in sophomore Jonah Coleman, who leads the Wildcats in rushing with 104 carries for 704 yards and three touchdowns. Coleman erupted for a career-high 179 yards on 11 carries in Arizona's 34-31 win over Colorado, with Wiley limited with an ankle injury. 

Coleman had runs of 54, 49, 24 and 21 yards in Boulder and stiff-armed and hurdled Colorado safety Shilo Sanders in the process. 

"He's a hard runner. He's a hard-nosed runner," Morgan said. "He likes to put his head down and run through tackles and get those extra yards."

Coleman currently leads the nation with 5.4 yards after contact per carry with a minimum of 100 snaps. He's averaging 7.2 yards per carry overall. Fisch, who was a one-time offensive assistant for the Jacksonville Jaguars, said the 5-9, 225-pound Coleman has a "very similar build to Maurice Jones-Drew" and uses his "lower-body power" to his advantage.

"His yards after contact is incredible throughout out the whole season," Fisch said of Coleman. "He's very strong, he's low to the ground, he's got very strong legs."

'It's expensive to run a football program'

Last month, all 85 Utah scholarship players were surprisingly given leases for Dodge Ram 1500 Big Horn pickup trucks through the Utah Crimson Collective, a nonprofit organization that assists the Utes football program with name, image and likeness (NIL) deals. The lease and insurance costs are fully paid for by donors of Utah Crimson Collective, however players are responsible for covering their taxes, according to Forbes.

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Donors "are the way most of these collectives are funded right now," Fisch said.

The Wildcats' collective group is "Desert Takeover," founded by longtime UA boosters Cole and Jeannie Davis and car dealership mogul Jim Click. Desert Takeover helped launch the "myNILpay" mobile app, which allows UA fans to digitally pay members of the UA football in exchange for a digital signature and NFT.

Some of Arizona's players are involved in the NIL era of college athletics, including linebacker Justin Flowe, who recently promoted Powerade on his Instagram page. International House of Pancakes (IHOP) had an Instagram video series with eight college football players, including UA cornerback Ephesians Prysock, to promote their favorite pancakes; Prysock plugged IHOP's "cinn-a-stack" pancakes.   

"It's clear where college football, college athletics, whatever you want to say, has gone in a lot of different ways; football specifically," Fisch said. "It's expensive to run a football program. It's certainly expensive when it comes down to player retention, player acquisition, how you're going to support your players through name, image and likeness.

"Collectives are very involved in that. Multimedia brands are involved in that. If you want to have a winning culture and a winning team, the supporters of the University of Arizona have to step up in that regard. It is the only way, right now, to get it to where it has to go.

"We've seen other programs put in millions upon millions of dollars into their player payroll, however you want to look at it. You can say some of them have benefitted greatly. Some of them would say there are challenges with that. In the end, you have to find a nice balance and have to be able to recognize and reward players for what they have done. Certain players obviously are going to bring more to the table financially."

Where do the Wildcats rank among programs in the Pac-12 regarding NIL?

"I wouldn't be able to answer that, because it's the most clandestine operation of all time," Fisch said. "Nobody has any idea what anybody is saying, doing. A lot of times what you hear and what we read turns out to be false.

"I believe that's why the NCAA right now is finding ways to make people at least tell people what they got," he said. "Give their contracts to one central location, make sure it's more open to the public and make sure people have a better understanding, because right now you don't know if you're negotiating against yourself or if you're negotiating against another team because there's no open forum or there's no way to really know." 

Battle of the backups

The quarterbacks from Arizona and Utah's battle in Salt Lake City last season will be at Arizona Stadium, just on the sidelines.

Utah quarterback Cameron Rising has been sidelined all season from a gruesome knee injury he suffered in last season's Rose Bowl and is "grinding and doing everything I possibly can" to return under center. Rising's replacement, Bryson Barnes, went 10 for 19 passing for 112 yards, one touchdown and one interception in the 35-21 loss to Penn State in the Rose Bowl. 

Barnes, a pig-farming Milford, Utah, native, has passed for 1,197 yards, 10 touchdowns and seven interceptions this season. Utah is last in the Pac-12 in passing yards per game (170.2) this season.

Not every "backup" quarterback is created equal.   

Arizona quarterback Jayden de Laura, who had a season-low 159 yards against the Utes last season, was sidelined with an ankle injury in the Pac-12 opener at Stanford. De Laura was replaced by redshirt freshman Noah Fifita, who has passed for 1,735 yards, 16 touchdowns and four interceptions — and led the Wildcats to four straight wins. Fifita will likely earn Pac-12 Offensive Freshman of the Year honors. Since Fifita led Arizona to a come-from-behind victory at Stanford, the Wildcats haven't turned back. 

"I think he's a playmaker," Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham said of Fifita. "He's not the biggest guy ... but he's extremely savvy in the pocket. He's doing a really good job running the offense.

"From what I've seen on tape, he's very impressive. I guess that's why even though de Laura is now healthy and able to play, they haven't switched back. They've stayed the course with the Fifita kid."

Fifita is coming off his most inaccurate game of his run as Arizona's starter, completing 21 of 35 passes (60%) after three straight contests of completing at least 78% or better. Fifita completed 13 of 17 passes, including all four attempts in the final drive, after going 8 for 18 in the first half at Colorado. 

"He never flinched. He was not worried," Fisch said. "There's times where that happens. He's a good quarterback; we're very lucky. We have two great quarterbacks in our program that have played a lot of football.

"What Noah was able to do is what good quarterbacks do: 'One throw at a time, one play at a time. So you miss a throw high or you miss a guy or a guy drops a pass on you. Just come back.'" 

Wildcats 'don't shy away from' Pac-12 championship talk

As Lloyd Christmas from Dumb and Dumber would say, "So you're telling me there's a chance?"

There is a path for Arizona to the Pac-12 Championship in Las Vegas on Dec. 1, but a few things need to happen. For starters, the Wildcats must win on Saturday and the Territorial Cup game in Tempe next week, in addition to Oregon losing both games. The Wildcats, tied for third in the conference, currently own the tiebreaker in the head-to-head matchup with Oregon State. Arizona could potentially leapfrog both Oregon schools after next week to set up a possible rematch with Washington for the conference championship — the first appearance for the UA since 2014.  

If the Wildcats don't win their last-ever home game as a Pac-12 team on Saturday, they'll be out of the race.  

"If you want to play in the Pac-12 championship game, you gotta win on Saturday. Then you gotta win (next) Saturday and have Oregon State beat Oregon. That has to happen," Fisch said. "We don't shy away from it. That's just the bottom line. That's why we all work this hard.

"We talk about the difference between sacrifice and investment, and everything we've asked our team to do is invest in themselves to be able to put ourselves in position to have that conversation. Once we got into the conversation, I didn't want to shy away from it."