Arizona's first road game of the 2024 season against the Kansas State Wildcats at Bill Snyder Family Stadium in Manhattan, Kansas on Friday, Sept. 13 will kick off at 5 p.m. for those watching back in Tucson (that's 7 p.m. local time in Manhattan) on Fox, the UA announced Wednesday.
Although the UA is scheduled to face Kansas State, a future Big 12 opponent, for the third game of the season, the head-to-head series will be considered a nonconference game; it was scheduled before Arizona joined the Big 12, where KSU has been a longstanding member.
KSU comes to Tucson in 2025 to complete the nonconference series.
Arizona's first official Big 12 game will be on Sept. 28 against Utah in Salt Lake City. The Wildcats' first conference home game will be against Texas Tech on Oct. 5.
In addition to nonconference home games against New Mexico and NAU, the Wildcats have Big 12 home matchups against Texas Tech, Colorado, West Virginia, Houston and Arizona State. The Territorial Cup rivalry game will wrap up the regular season on Saturday, Nov. 30 in Tucson.
Arizona's road contests are at Utah, BYU, UCF and TCU. The Wildcats have two bye weeks — first when officially entering Big 12 play following the Kansas State game and again after the UCF contest in November.
The Big 12 football championship game will be held at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Dec. 7.
As part of the conference's new media rights deal, all of Arizona's games will be televised on either Fox or ESPN's platforms; those can include broadcast channels like Fox and ABC, cable channels like ESPN, ESPN2 and FS1, or the ESPN+ streaming platform. Each team in the Big 12 will receive a $31.7 million share from the media rights deal.
Arizona ended its 2023 season on a seven-game winning streak, which included a victory over former Big 12 team Oklahoma in the Alamo Bowl, and finished with a 10-3 record, becoming the fourth team in program history to win at least 10 games. Arizona finished No. 11 in the Associated Press Top 25, the highest ranking to end a season since 1998.
Despite former head coach Jedd Fisch leaving for Washington, the Wildcats return their nucleus from last season, including quarterback Noah Fifita and wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, one of the top quarterback-receiver tandems in college football. Additionally, All-Pac-12 linebacker Jacob Manu and most of the defensive secondary are back for the first season under new coach Brent Brennan. Arizona will likely enter the season as a Top 25 program and one of the favorites to win the Big 12 and secure a bid in the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff.
Arizona kicks off its season against New Mexico on Aug. 31 at Arizona Stadium. Kickoff time and television broadcast will be announced at a later date.
