Arizona Wildcats 'answered areas of need' on Early Signing Day

Less than a week after Arizona ended its 4-8 campaign in head coach Brent Brennan’s first season, the UA football staff gathered at the Dunlap Club in Arizona Stadium on Wednesday to celebrate the future.

Arizona signed 20 players for its 2025 recruiting class, which is comprised of mostly high school athletes from California, Texas, Arizona, Hawaii and Florida — and one junior college defensive lineman. The Wildcats also have a commitment from three-star Northern California quarterback Robert McDaniel, but he hasn’t signed with Arizona yet.

“I want today to be a celebration of young people that have chosen the University of Arizona and be a part of our football program, and we’re really excited about all of them and I think they all have a chance to contribute in meaningful ways — some of them in this next year and some of them down the road,” Brennan said.

Nearly half of Arizona’s recruiting class are offensive and defensive linemen. Arizona signed five offensive linemen, including Sione Tohi, a 6-3, 356-pound star from Mater Dei High School (California), who picked the UA over Alabama, Arizona State, LSU and Auburn, among others. The Wildcats added in-state offensive tackle Jaxon Griffin, a 6-6, 250-pounder from Mesa.

The Wildcats signed three defensive linemen, including 6-7, 365-pound defensive tackle Zac Siulepa, a New Zealand native and product of Garden City Community College; he was the only player to sign with Arizona who wasn’t committed before Wednesday.

“To compete at a high level, we’re going to have to continue to put in time and resources into the offensive and defensive front,” Brennan said. “I felt like a lot of the teams we faced were bigger than us. Physicality being such a hallmark of who we want to be and it being such an important thing in the game of football, that’s something we had to aggressively address in this recruiting class — and we will continue to aggressively address in the transfer portal.”

Besides offensive and defensive linemen, Arizona added three-star Gilbert Higley quarterback Luke Haugo, Houston-area running back Wesley Yarbrough, Northern California tight end Kellan Ford and Orlando, Florida, wide receiver Isaiah Mizell, who was the first signee on Wednesday, and Chandler Basha receiver Gio Richardson. Haugo, Mizell and Richardson will be among the five players from the ’25 recruiting class to enroll early and participate in spring practices.

Arizona “answered areas of need and we’re going to be very, very active in the transfer portal, which opens up on Monday, so there’s all kinds of work to be done for our football program and we’re excited about where we’re going,” Brennan said. “We’ve made some great retention with our roster.”

The three traits Brennan and the Arizona staff looked for in recruits during this cycle: “smart, tough and love football.”

A second sport helps, too.

A majority of Arizona’s current recruiting cycle has multi-sport athletes, whether it’s basketball, baseball or track, which “helps them develop their overall athleticism,” Brennan said.

“It also gives us an opportunity, as coaches and evaluators, to see them compete in a sport other than football,” Brennan said. “Sometimes you notice more athleticism on a basketball court. ... I think we answered a lot of that with this group.”

In recent years, with the rise of NIL and the upcoming revenue-sharing model set to take place in 2025, the conversations with recruits and their families have different language and verbiage than, say, five or 10 years ago; it’s more transactional. Brennan said players sign “multiple contracts” tied to NIL and revenue sharing.

“Once they sign their financial aid agreement, it is supposed to create this so-called recruiting ban,” Brennan said. “That means other people aren’t allowed to actively recruit them once they sign that financial aid agreement. How binding those things are, time will tell. We are obviously in this constant state of evolution in college football right now.”

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Brennan said conversations about NIL and revenue sharing are “happening with every player that is either being retained or you’re recruiting.”

Added Arizona football general manager Gaizka Crowley: “It gets talked about a lot, but ultimately we want people to come here for our coaches, our community and our school. The financial aspect is part of modern college football, but we want old-school recruiting. We’re going to recruit off relationships and we want kids who want to be here and love to play and fall in love with the university.”

Despite Arizona’s losing season, Brennan and the UA football staff were encouraged by the number of players who stuck with their commitment to the Wildcats and signed. The Wildcats had five players decommit in the fall.

“When you start recruiting a young person, you’re starting a relationship, you’re starting to build trust over time,” Brennan said. “I really think recruits choose people in the recruiting process. We continue to lean on the value of University of Arizona education, the quality of people here, living in the city of Tucson, things that are obvious and easy for them to see and feel, whether they’re here on an official visit or here unofficially. ... When we weren’t having success in the season, there was still a lot of trust and a lot of history there.

“They chose to come play for the coaches on this staff because they believe those coaches are going to help them develop them into high-level, NFL-quality players. That didn’t change, because we didn’t have success.”

While Brennan is content with Arizona’s recruiting class, the Wildcats “continue to have needs for our football team that we’re going to aggressively fill and address over the next month with the opening of the transfer portal on Monday,” he said.

Signing Day “traditionally was the end of a recruiting class, where now it’s just the start,” Crowley added.

The transfer portal opening on Monday opens the floodgates of college football’s free agency; plus, the Wildcats have National Signing Day in the spring and another spring transfer portal window to add players.

“This is really the first step of another, call it, nine or 10 months before we finish building this team for next season. ... We still got a lot of work to do,” Crowley said. “This class is nowhere near done. The retention of our team is nowhere near done, so this is just the first leg. We still got a lot of work to do.”

Extra points

• Arizona’s recruiting class is ranked 52nd nationally and 10th in the Big 12, according to 247Sports.com.

• Several Arizona players announced their decisions to enter the transfer portal on Monday: running back Rayshon Luke, wide receiver AJ Jones, quarterback Brayden Dorman, tight end Dorian Thomas and offensive lineman JT Hand.

• Marana High School standout wide receiver Dezmen Roebuck signed with the Washington Huskies to play for former UA head coach Jedd Fisch. The 6-0, 170-pound Roebuck led the Tigers to the program’s first-ever spot in the Open Division and set a state record with 352 career receptions for 4,239 yards and 40 touchdowns over four seasons.

• Salpointe Catholic offensive lineman Roman Fina signed with Duke, where his older brother, Bruno, plays. The Fina brothers are the sons of Tucson native and former NFL and UA offensive lineman John Fina.