The first offseason was an abbreviated one, the second a do over. Neither allowed much opportunity for Brent Brennan to take a breath, let alone a day off.<\/p>\n
Midway through his third offseason at Arizona, Brennan still isn\u2019t slowing down, but that\u2019s by choice rather than necessity. And it helps that there isn\u2019t nearly as much newness as the previous two winters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the fact that we\u2019re moving forward as a coaching staff with with almost everybody here,\u201d Brennan said Monday in his first press conference since the Holiday Bowl. \u201cI think that retention piece, the consistency of leadership, you guys have heard me talk about how important I believe that is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arizona recently locked up offensive coordinator Seth Doege and defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales through the 2028 season, with Brennan signed through 2029. Only one change needed to be made to the main coaching staff, with analyst Lyle Moevao taking over running backs following Alonzo Carter\u2019s departure to be head coach at Sacramento State.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think in the world of college football right now, when you see how many people are moving every offseason, players, coaches, all that, I think that\u2019s one of the things that presents the greatest challenge in my mind, of building a consistent, sustainable, winning program here at Arizona,\u201d Brennan said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve really appreciated the commitment from our administration that gave us a chance to keep those coaches here and to keep all of our coaches here, because everybody was signed to new contracts. I think that speaks to the belief they have in us, and the fact that we\u2019ve shown progress in terms of what we are building with Arizona football.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arizona is coming off a 9-4 season in 2025, just the eighth time in school history it has won at least eight games. Two of those have come in the past three years, but in between was a coaching change and a disappointing 4-8 campaign in 2024. Brennan spent most of that first offseason just trying to get up to speed after coming over from San Jose in late January, his main priority on retaining talent which led to the roster needs getting mostly ignored.<\/p>\n
Last winter he more or less started over, bringing in Doege from Marshall to overhaul the offense and putting the defense in Gonzales\u2019 hands. The roster also needed a massive overhaul, with more than 50 new players added, and most of those changes paid off.<\/p>\n
Now it\u2019s about maintaining that success, and building off it. Staff retention is a big part of that, but so is roster consistency.<\/p>\n
Though Arizona lost several starters to graduation or the NFL Draft, it did not have any significant contributors enter the NCAA transfer portal. That includes quarterback Noah Fifita, who announced his return for 2026 moments after the 2025 season ended.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Noah Fifita is the best story in college football,\u201d Brennan said. \u201cHe\u2019s chosen to stay. He\u2019s chosen to not take the money and run. He\u2019s chosen to show up for the city of Tucson, for the University of Arizona, for this program, for his teammates, for this coaching staff. It\u2019s a choice that he makes every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spring practice begins March 24, at which time the UA will get its first on-field glimpse at 20 transfer additions and 13 members of the 2026 prep signing class. To this point those newcomers have been involved in the strength and conditioning program and informal workouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do feel good about the people that we that we\u2019ve added,\u201d Brennan said. \u201cI think it\u2019s gonna be a lot of fun to get on the field and actually get playing football and get practicing and say, oh, this guy looks good, or I\u2019m excited about this guy, or this young player looks like he has a chance to help us this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two returners that figure to be limited in spring ball are offensive lineman Tristan Bounds and edge Tre Smith, both of whom received medical redshirts for a sixth season of eligibility. Bounds is coming back from a lower body injury suffered in early November while Smith had shoulder surgery after playing only four games in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re gonna be smart with them,\u201d Brennan said. \u201cI\u2019ve told you guys many, many times myself, the coaching staff, we don\u2019t make any medical decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first offseason was an abbreviated one, the second a do over. Neither allowed much opportunity for Brent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":800341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[52664,7],"class_list":["post-800340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-arizona-football","tag-football"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}