Analysis: Arizona's historic 2023 season sets Wildcats up for 2024 College Football Playoff

What a wild ride. Some would say Arizona’s historic 2023 season was unexpected.

Those of us in the media within the Pac-12’s geographic footprint had the Wildcats eighth in the conference’s preseason poll.

And for the umpteenth time in college football history, preseason polls proved to be irrelevant.

The ’23 Wildcats smashed expectations. They finished with a 10-3 record and joined the 1993, ’98 and 2014 teams as the only in program history to win at least 10 games in a season. It’s the fewest losses for Arizona since that 1998 season, when the Wildcats went 12-1 and defeated Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl. Their setbacks this year were by a combined 16 points — all one-possession games, including two overtime contests.

A Fiesta Bowl-winning team (1993), an Arizona team with the best record in program history (1998) and a UA squad that won the Pac-12 South championship (2014); that’s the company this UA roster is mentioned in the same breath with looking ahead. Not too shabby.

To think, just over three years ago, the Wildcats were embarrassed by 63 points against their archrival, leading to the near-immediate end of the Kevin Sumlin era — one of the grimmest periods in modern UA history.

A year later, Arizona went 1-11 — the one win being the only thing stopping an ongoing 20-game losing streak — in the first season under former NFL journeyman coach Jedd Fisch, who surrounded himself with a potpourri of coaches with NFL backgrounds and West Coast ties in college football.

Using his longtime connections throughout his well-traveled coaching journey, Fisch raised $6 million to help renovate the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility in order to keep up with the Joneses in college football.

Fisch’s efforts restored belief in the program. So much that left tackle Jordan Morgan and running back Michael Wiley stayed, when the current landscape of college football gave them every opportunity to run.

Then came more talent.

Arizona’s 2022 recruiting class, headlined by wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, the highest-rated signee by the UA in the modern recruiting era, were instant playmakers. The Wildcats also landed wide receiver Jacob Cowing, quarterback Jayden de Laura, tight end Tanner McLachlan and running back DJ Williams, among others, through the transfer portal.

Arizona improved to 5-7 in 2022, including wins over No. 12 UCLA at the Rose Bowl and Arizona State to reclaim the Territorial Cup for the first time in six years, and the offense was the sixth-best attack in college football, but the Wildcats still had one of the statistically one of the worst defenses in college football.

So Arizona added nearly 1,000 pounds on the defensive line; at the start of the 2023 season, Fisch said that is the equivalent of “one saltwater crocodile.”

The young defensive players added from the 2022 recruiting class — namely linebacker Jacob Manu, cornerbacks Ephesians Prysock and Tacario Davis, and edge rusher Isaiah Ward — coupled with the size and experience from the 2023 newcomers, especially on the defensive line, allowed Arizona’s to improve from No. 125 nationally in total defense to No. 51. Manu, Arizona’s ringleader regardless of whichever defensive scheme coordinator Johnny Nansen deploys, wreaked havoc with a conference-best 116 tackles. The last Wildcat to lead the Pac-12 in tackles was All-American Scooby Wright on that 10-win 2014 UA team.

Multiple times this season, Arizona’s defense weathered storms and kept the Wildcats within striking distance of winning games. Very seldom did Arizona trail by multiple possessions.

But when the offense produced five turnovers in the cowbell-rattling environment at Mississippi State or stalled in Pac-12 games, the defense picked up the slack when it counted.

Oklahoma was knocking on the door of taking a three-possession lead in the Alamo Bowl; but Arizona safety Dalton Johnson forced Oklahoma wide receiver Jalil Farooq to lose control of the ball, which popped up in the hands of UA safety Gunner Maldonado for an 87-yard return for a touchdown.

“The way our defense played all year, they just got better and better and better and better and better, and they just kept finding ways and finding ways to make plays,” Fisch said. “We’ve got one of the greatest stories this season with the defensive turnaround from a year ago until today, and the fact that we have so many players returning again just sets the standard and raises the standard.”

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That third-quarter takeaway, one of a program-record six, ignited the Wildcats to score 25 unanswered points, including 17 in the fourth quarter. Excluding the combined four overtime periods against Mississippi State and USC, the Wildcats outscored their opponents 123-58 in the fourth quarter this season. Whether it was a 17-point avalanche or a game-winning drive to set up kicker Tyler Loop with a walk-off field goal at Colorado, or Wiley’s critical receiving touchdowns against Oregon State, the Wildcats never flinched.

Time and time again this season, the Wildcats never unraveled in crunch time.

“You don’t win the game in the first quarter and you don’t win the game in the second quarter and you don’t win the game in the third quarter,” said Fisch. “If you learn that and you believe that, then these guys go out there and they don’t flinch. They know that the fourth quarter is going to be the time that they’ve got to be at their best.”

Arizona was supposed to be in the “win little” phase of this operation under Fisch. Instead, he’s got a bonafide winner. Arizona went 3-2 in a five-game stretch against ranked opponents, including a 38-point win at Washington State and a bowl-clinching triumph against UCLA. The Wildcats went from three-touchdown underdogs to favorites in the span of a season.

In the process, the Wildcats found their next franchise quarterback, Noah Fifita, who took over for the injured de Laura in the Pac-12 opener at Stanford and didn’t relinquish his duties. Fifita helped Cowing, Arizona’s all-time leader in single-season receiving touchdowns (13), and McMillan, who has the second-most receiving yards in a season by a UA receiver (1,402), etch their names in UA history books.

Sophomore running back Jonah Coleman found his mojo as the Wildcats’ leading rusher and blossomed into the heir apparent for Wiley — and one of the top incoming backs for 2024. Tackle-guard hybrids Jonah Savaiinaea and freshman Raymond Pulido, who flipped his commitment from Alabama to Arizona, are proven stars in the post-Morgan era and headline an offensive line that also returns starting left guard Wendell Moe and center Josh Baker.

The Wildcats return the lion’s share of their starters on defense, including all five members of the secondary, an unprecedented mark.

“But I love our players, and I think the reason why we can do what we do is because our players stay and our players work hard and our players believe,” Fisch said.

“Where else would you rather be than go try to be in the Top 10 or better next year?”

Sure, the Wildcats will have to plug in some gaps, which they will surely address in the transfer portal. But beyond the few vacant spots, Arizona is “going into the Big 12 (in 2024) with a lot of momentum,” where they should be among the favorites to win the conference and legitimately in the early discussion to make the reformated 12-team College Football Playoff.

Remember preseason polls? Now the Wildcats have the chance to double down on winning when all eyes are now on them.

Photos: No. 14 Arizona gets offensive late to drop No. 12 Oklahoma 38-24 in the Alamo Bowl