Michael Lev: Arizona football, Brent Brennan erred by not engaging fans in run-up to season

Saturday night should be a public celebration of Arizona football.

Instead, the Wildcats are practicing behind closed doors.

There’s no showcase for UA fans. There’s no welcome back for UA students. There’s no autograph session for UA diehards or potential future occupants of the ZonaZoo.

Oddly, the UA football program has done relatively little to connect to fans entering what could be a historic season.

Bear Down? Sorry, this is a bit of a letdown. It’s quite possibly the first mistake made by the Brent Brennan regime.

Before going any further, let me be clear: I’m all in on Brennan as Arizona’s coach. He has the perfect temperament for this job and this town. I firmly believe he will prosper here.

But in this particular area — engaging the fan base in the run-up to the season — he and the athletic department have fallen short.

Now, you might argue that it’s not his responsibility. That his sole duties are to develop young men and win football games. And that if he succeeds, people will come, and Arizona Stadium will be filled.

I asked Brennan about that this week: What portion of your job do you view as marketing the program?

“I think of it more in terms of me representing our program,” he said. “I leave the marketing to the people with degrees and master’s and PhDs and experience in that line of work.

“Obviously, I’m on a microphone a lot. I am out and about a lot. So I (understand) the importance of it.

“In all those things, I just try to be myself. Obviously, that’s a huge part of this business and a huge part of this institution.

“I’m gonna try everything I can to get our team ready to play and get us in a great spot and ready to play really good football. And I’m gonna trust (the marketing) to somebody who’s better at that than I am.”

Brennan’s approach stands in stark contrast to that of his predecessor. Your lingering bitterness toward Jedd Fisch is completely justified. But you can’t deny that the man took every opportunity to promote the program.

I once compared Fisch to P.T. Barnum. The coach who adroitly led UA football out of the depths before abruptly leaving town never missed a chance to sell tickets. Since his days in “The Swamp” at Florida, he’s understood the value and power of a real home-field advantage.

Did Fisch’s pleas and catchphrases feel cheesy at times? Sure. It wouldn’t have been surprising to see his face and “It’s Personal” plastered on the side of a Tucson city bus.

But he tried. Because he knew he had to. And that might be a key distinction here.

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Fisch took over the program at its lowest point. He had to come up with ways to generate buzz — see Rob Gronkowski catching a football dropped from a helicopter — because the team sure as hell wasn’t while in the midst of a record losing streak.

Brennan, meanwhile, inherited a team on a winning streak that sold out the 2023 home finale and was well-represented at the Alamo Bowl.

Arizona has sold more than 20,000 season tickets for the first time since 2018 and is up 19% compared to the end of last year. People clearly are interested in investing their time and money in UA football — even if the invitation to watch it before next Saturday’s opener never arrived.

Technically, all of the Wildcats’ practices during training camp (July 31-Aug. 17) were open to the public. But, unlike recent years, neither the program nor the athletic department ever advertised that fact — and expected local media not to do so either.

I would push back at Brennan’s assertion that “early on in camp, we had a lot of fans.” Only a handful showed up for most practices, as it was unclear whether they were open for public consumption. The UA did have a decent-sized crowd for one of the night sessions at Arizona Stadium, hosting about 100 area youth players.

I just wish there’d been more of that.

To their credit, Brennan and his players have been out and about in the community. Since Brennan arrived in mid-January, the Wildcats have been involved in multiple community service projects with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, Ben’s Bells, Felicia’s Farm and the Salvation Army. The UA has hosted youth football camps and the Next Level Flag Football program.

Could the team also have cut some promotional videos encouraging fans to come watch training camp? Easily.

One of the reasons it didn’t happen is that the UA athletic department has experienced pretty significant turnover this summer, especially in the area of marketing. The school’s job board currently lists multiple positions for “Marketing Specialist I (Athletics)” as well as one for “Assistant Athletics Director of Marketing and Fan Engagement.”

With more continuity, perhaps meetings could have been held and a marketing strategy — including inviting fans to training camp — could have been formulated. Even if the former took place, the latter never came to fruition.

Regarding the idea of a showcase scrimmage to kick off the season, Brennan had reservations.

“The closer you get to the start of the season, the more you hesitate to play live football,” he said last week. “It’s a really fine line in terms of getting them game ready and also putting them at risk.”

Brennan added that it wouldn’t serve the program if “a lot of information” were to get out about formations and personnel — understandable when no one has seen the Wildcats’ hybrid offense.

But they didn’t need to hold a “real” practice Saturday night to make it worthwhile. They could have made it something of a pep rally — more fun than football. They could have sacrificed one night of drills to engage and interact with fans.

If you’re thinking that the chaos of move-in weekend might not be the best time to hold such an event, well, it didn’t stop the previous regime. Arizona Stadium hosted open scrimmages on the Saturday night before the first week of classes each of the past three years.

One aspect that’s different this year: The season is starting earlier. The opener is just a week away. The scrimmages under Fisch all had a two-week buffer.

Is that enough of a reason not to do it? In my view, no.

So what’s the real reason then? One theory is that Brennan doesn’t want to do anything that would further raise expectations and/or place undue pressure on his players. “Protect the program” is always at the forefront of his mind.

I don’t believe a celebratory scrimmage would have threatened the program in any way. If anything, it would have enriched it.