Following a 1-11 2021 season, Arizona has been predicted to finish 11th in the preseason media poll for the Pac-12 Conference with Utah, Oregon and USC picked to finish at the top of the league in order. The lone team picked behind the Wildcats is Colorado, which beat UA 34-0 last season.

Having not won a game since October 5, 2019, the Wildcats were able to snap that skid, with their lone win coming against a COVID-ridden Cal team on Nov. 6. UA won that matchup, 10-3, in a game that came down to the final drive.

After years of failing to field a strong recruiting class (ranking 11 out of 12 in the Pac-12 in 2021) Arizona was finally able to have a successful 2022 recruiting season managing to land five-star prospect Tetairoa McMillan and multiple four-star prospects. Two of the Wildcats signees were in the Rivals250 Prospect Rankings, and the strong recruiting by current head coach Jedd Fisch has put the Wildcats as the No. 21 class nationally according to Rivals.

Despite sportsbooks in Las Vegas having the Wildcats over/under for wins at only 2.5 for the 2022 season, the team goes into the season looking very different especially at the quarterback position with Arizona landing former Washington State quarterback and 2021 Pac-12 Offensive Freshman of the Year in Jayden de Laura and added three-star quarterback Noah Fifita from Anaheim, California.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Wildcats will run a different scheme as opposed to the heavy blitz packages run by Don Brown with the addition of former UCLA defensive-line coach Johnny Nansen, who will run a 4-2-5 zone-based style defense that is supposed to create a higher number of interceptions and turnovers.

As it also happened last year, Arizona will begin their season playing three-straight non-conference games with their first game being away against San Diego State before going back to Tucson to take on Mississippi State and then North Dakota State, who has won nine FCS national titles and is known as the team that developed current NFL quarterbacks Carson Wentz and Trey Lance.

The first conference game for Arizona comes on September 24, where they will travel to Berkeley to play California in the hopes of beating them two years in-a-row for the first time since 2017 and 2018. The Wildcats will face the gauntlet part of their schedule beginning with their October 8, game against Oregon and go on to face Washington, USC, Utah and UCLA in a five-week stretch. The matchups against USC and UCLA will be the penultimate meeting before both of those teams move to the Big 12 after the 2023-24 academic year.

Arizona will be looking to end a four-year bowl game drought dating back to the 2017 season. It’s the longest stretch the program has gone without a bowl game since the 10-year drought from 1998 to 2008.

(first-place votes)

1. Utah (26) - 384 points

2. Oregon (2) - 345

3. USC (5) - 341

4. UCLA - 289

5. Oregon State - 246

6. Washington - 212

7. Washington State - 177

8. Stanford - 159

9. Cal - 154

10. Arizona State - 123

11. Arizona - 86

12. Colorado - 58

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