Taking stock: What Arizona Wildcats football looks like under coach Brent Brennan

The offseason is here, with all Arizona sports for the 2023-24 season and the 2024-25 campaigns still a ways away.

That makes this a good time to take a step back and see how all the Wildcats programs are doing, especially with the impending move to the Big 12 Conference.

Take a look at the UA's men's and women's athletic programs in the coming weeks to see what shape they are in and what prospects they have for the near future. We break down each team and evaluate how it is performing under the current coaching staff, looking at the state of the program before he/she arrived and comparing it to now, while also looking at the upcoming Big 12 debut and beyond .

First: Brent Brennans football team

What it used to look like

Arizona put together one of the best seasons in school history in 2023, winning ten games, including the Alamo Bowl against Oklahoma. And with most of the team expected to return, the sky was the limit for the Wildcats heading into the Big 12.

Then, seemingly in an instant, everything changed. Jedd fish left for Washington, taking with him his entire offensive staff, as well as several key players and numerous notable incoming recruits. Arizona acted quickly and named Brennan as Fisch's replacement after seven years at San Jose State.

Brennan had to work hard, first convincing most of the team to give him a shot and then trying to fill out a roster with more than two dozen available scholarships for spring ball. He also assembled a coaching staff that included experienced defensive gurus Duane brothers and two coordinators with experience as head coaches.

Where things stand now

Considering how bad things could have turned out, Arizonas are still in a pretty good spot entering 2024. Most super-early rankings still have the Wildcats in the Top 25, and they should be among the top teams rank in the Big 12s preseason poll.

Spring ball went well, with no major injuries aside from the projected first-round NFL draft pick Greetings McMillan he injures his right foot and undergoes a minor procedure that is expected to heal in time for fall camps. The UA has since added more than a dozen players through the NCAA transfer portal.

As for Brennan, he has been part of every stop the Arizona athletic department has made on the statewide Wildcat Welcome Tour, meeting with fans and answering questions about the program. He won't have to make nearly the same kind of turnovers that Fisch did three years ago, but there will be uncertainty hanging over him until he coaches his first game.

What life in the Big 12 should be like

After finishing third in the Pac-12's final year, but without ever winning the conference outright and representing it in the Rose Bowl, Arizona enters a new league up for grabs. The Big 12's traditional powers, Oklahoma and Texas, are moving to the SEC, leaving just six schools with a combined 15 appearances in the conference title game, and one of those is fellow Pac-12 addition Colorado.

The UA will actually play 10 Big 12 opponents this fall, with a mid-September trip to Kansas State counting as a non-conference tilt. The Wildcats will visit BYU, TCU, UCF and Utah while hosting ASU, Colorado, Houston, Texas Tech and West Virginia, with future games against Baylor, Cincinnati, Iowa State, Kansas and Oklahoma State.

The Big 12 title game takes place in Arlington, Texas, the first weekend in December.

One big question

Will the changes kill the momentum? T-Mac and Noah Fifita are back, as are four starting offensive linemen, the Pac-12s leading tackler from 2023, nearly the entire secondary and one of the best kickers in the country. On paper, that's a significant amount of returning talent, which should be more than enough to make Arizona a contender in the Big 12.

But a lot came back then Old Sumlin took over in 2018, inheriting a roster that includes the Heisman Trophy contender Khalil Tate Pac-12 Offensive Freshman of the Year JJ Taylor and stud linebacker Colin Schooler, among other things. But it took less than one game to see how much Sumlin and his staff were especially the offensive coordinator Noel Mazzonewanted to do things differently, and that marked the beginning of the program's rapid demise.

Brennan and his staff have vowed not to change too much, at least in the first season, to maximize the upside of the best players. See if that's really the case when the Wildcats host New Mexico on August 31.