Arizona was idle for college football’s opening weekend, but the results couldn’t have been better for first-year coach Brent Brennan.
From morning to night, upsets and great escapes provided Brennan with the tangible evidence needed to properly caution his Wildcats about the potential potholes ahead:
— Florida State, which won the ACC last year, lost by three points to Georgia Tech, a perennial bottom-feeder.
— SMU, fresh off an 11-win season and basking in its promotion to the ACC, needed a fourth-quarter rally to overcome lowly Nevada.
— And New Mexico, which visits Tucson on Saturday night, lost at home to Montana State.
Three games, three plot twists — each of them presented in great detail to the Wildcats as they embark on a season unlike any Arizona’s program has experienced in a decade.
“We dove hard into those three situations,” Brennan told the Hotline. “It was a great look-in for our players.”
The Wildcats are ranked in the Associated Press preseason poll (No. 21) for the first time since 2015, when they were coming off a Pac-12 South title, 10 wins and a berth in the Fiesta Bowl.
They opened the ’15 season with three victories over creampuff opponents and had risen to No. 16 in the land by the time conference play began.
Reality proved unforgiving: They dropped six of nine, finished the regular season with a .500 record and bore zero resemblance to the team that had won a division 12 months earlier.
Will history repeat?
The situations aren’t identical, but there are some similarities. The 2015 team returned starting quarterback Anu Solomon, for example, just as these Wildcats brought back Noah Fifita.
For Arizona men’s basketball players, lofty expectations are as ubiquitous as iPhones. On the football side, they’re as common as BlackBerrys.
“We tell the players, ‘You had a magical season, but that’s over,'” said Brennan, who replaced Jedd Fisch in January.
“We have 46 new players, a new president, a new athletic director and a new coaching staff. We’re looking at the best way this team can move forward.
“Jedd recruited good players and really high-quality young men. We have spent a lot of time with them doing fun stuff, like barbecues, trying to get to know each other away from football, on a personal level, so we can talk openly and often about the things that really matter.”
The Wildcats also have a new home, the Big 12, where parity is both strength and weakness.
The conference is devoid of the blue-blood programs that sign five-star recruits and compete regularly for the national championship. But it goes 10 deep (at least) with quality teams.
Arizona’s fate is destined to unfold on the margins, with a few plays here or there, typically in the fourth quarter, determining the trajectory.
Last year, the pivotal plays often broke in Arizona’s favor.
Luck played a role, as it always does. So, too, did chemistry.
The Wildcats were picked eighth in the Pac-12 preseason media poll, limiting expectations internally and externally. The players navigated the season with the fourth-quarter freedom that only comes when jerseys are padded with house money.
That’s not the case for Brennan’s team, which was pegged for fifth place in the Big 12 media poll (and received three first-place votes).
Anything less than eight wins would be a disappointment.
Less than six, an abject failure.
Everybody knows it, and there’s no place to hide.
“One of the hardest things for young people to do is to handle praise, and these guys have gotten a lot of it,” Brennan said.
“It’s not just a guy patting you on the back on University Avenue, either. It’s hundreds of people hitting you up on social media.
“It’s always there, everywhere you go. And you have to handle it. Don’t focus on social media. Don’t focus on the outcome. Focus on the process. Focus on going to school, playing good football and being a good dude.”
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