When speaking of building his culture early in his first season as head coach at Arizona, Jedd Fisch often spoke of making football fun once again for his players. At the time, the Wildcats were in the midst of a 12-game losing streak, but Fisch had started to build a positive environment around the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility.

There might be a few less smiles coming from Fisch heading into 2022. The reality has started to settle in a bit more now after the Wildcats wrapped up a 1-11 season Saturday in Tempe against rival Arizona State. The only win for the Wildcats this season came against a depleted Cal squad that was dealing with COVID-related issues earlier this month.

The result was a 10-3 victory over the Golden Bears. The weight of a what was a 20-game losing streak was lifted, but as the season came to a close over the weekend the offseason to-do list remained long.

There is a lot of work ahead of the Wildcats, and Fisch is not shying away from the fact that his team will have to take a bit of a different approach heading into the second year of his tenure.

"It's not gonna be fun this offseason," Fisch said. "The first offseason we got to learn each other, and we got to know each other. This offseason we gotta figure out a way to take from where we were to where we want to be, and we gotta do an unbelievable job of improving every single day and improving as a team.

"Team building, team bonding, getting to know one another even more. Then have a group of guys that don't want to repeat this."

Fisch has challenged to players to take it upon themselves to make improvements this winter. Because Arizona is not playing in a bowl game the team cannot practice any more this season. The coaches have to hit the road recruiting, so there will be very little time on campus over the next couple weeks. Fisch doesn't want his group to be idle while other teams see their seasons move forward.

"How do you get better when you have teams that are practicing 15 times and you're practicing zero? Teams that are lifting eight times and you're practicing zero? Then on January 12th when you return back you've got teams that have had a major advantage," Fisch said Sunday in his season-ending press conference. "A, they had a better record and, B, they were able to take advantage of a December. We challenged our team to create their own bowl schedule.

"There is no rule that says our players can't figure out what they need to do to win, and what they need to do to have a great December. They have the opportunity to voluntarily choose do to whatever they would like to be able to get better during this time, and not just use it as three weeks early of vacation."

Fisch is not just putting it on the players to make improvements. Now through his first season as a head coach, Fisch wants the change to begin with himself and his coaching staff. The Wildcats were among the most undisciplined teams in the Pac-12 this season with the second-most penalties, 105, called against them this year.