Arizona Football fall camp is officially underway on Wednesday, exactly one month ahead of the 2025 season opener against Hawaii. Before taking the field on Wednesday for the first time, Brent Brennan spoke to local media on Tuesday, providing key personnel updates, where the team has been focusing this offseason, and what fans can expect when the Wildcats take the field for the first time.
Arizona has new coordinators in all three phases, with Seth Doege taking over as offensive coordinator, Danny Gonzales elevating to defensive coordinator, and Craig Naivar joining to lead special teams. Coupled with 53 new players on the roster, the one thing for certain is that this season’s Wildcats won’t look anything like they did last year.
Check out everything Brent Brennan said at Arizona Football’s Media Day ahead of the start of the 2025 fall camp:
Brent Brennan on the most significant part of building Arizona’s roster and staff this offseason?
“When you go through a tough season like we did a year ago, you’ve got to find a way to fix what was broken, fix what wasn’t working, and then put those pieces together. And part of those pieces are how we’re going to do things in terms of how we’re going to coach, what we’re going to do schematically, and then the other part of those things are who are the players that are going to play those roles, right? And so we’ve added more players to a roster than I’ve ever been a part of this offseason, and also more staff transition than I’ve ever been a part of.
But credit to the new coaches, credit to the new players, and then also credit to our current roster members. Those guys have really helped the new people understand what our ‘Bear Down Brotherhood’ is all about, and how we’re going to do business day in and day out, what our culture is, and how we’re going to live.”
Brent Brennan on how his mentality/approach heading into the 2025 fall camp is different than Year 1 at Arizona?
“I would say it’s definitely different. My approach, does it change wholeheartedly? No. Because I still believe at the end of the day football is about blocking, tackling, having the right people in the right places and executing at a high level and playing harder than everybody that you compete against. That being said, did I come at this offseason with a different mindset than last season? Absolutely. The circumstances were way different, right? In terms of putting the team together and building it, it was much more in what I thought we needed here at the U of A.
We’ve been on the job for I think 19 months now, or maybe a little bit less than that. And so, when you look at that, how do you get the right people in the right seats on the bus? How do you get the right players to fit the schemes that you’re going to run and execute in? And that’s what we’ve been doing. So my mindset, or my approach, hasn’t necessarily changed because I still think everything has to be process driven. Because last year we killed ourselves with outcome focus. But that can’t be who we are now. We have to be worried about today.”
Brent Brennan on what he likes and is most concerned about on the field heading into fall camp?
“What I like most about where we’re at is I think we made huge strides in grasping scheme changes in all three phases. When you bring in three new coordinators, that’s a lot of new learning, and I love how the players have just attacked that throughout the offseason, throughout the spring practice, just how intentional they’ve been about understanding and being able to apply what that new scheme is going to look like in offense, defense, and special teams.
I think what concerns me, I don’t know that it concerns me, but like the things we have to figure out, we have to figure out who those pieces are going to be in the special teams, because we’ve had so much of a roster overhaul. We’ve got to figure out who are going to be the guys that are going to run down on kickoff. We’ve got to find out, can we hit it out of the end zone every time, like we did last year with Tyler Loop. We had a real benefit with that.
I think we’ve got to figure out what the rotation is going to look like in the offensive line, because there’s a lot of new pieces there. Then overall, we’ve got to do a great job of developing our depth, so that when we do have somebody get nicked, we have a chance for somebody to step in there and execute at a high level and give us a chance to win football games.”
Brent Brennan on the competition at center?
“I think that’s going to be a fun thing to watch. Obviously, Grayson [Stovall] has a lot of experience, but I also think KD [Ka’ena Decambra] is a guy that’s played multiple spots in the offensive line. He’s a big, athletic kid. He’s a tough, physical kid, which you like that. And then he’s also smart, and I think that position has to be one of your most intelligent players. I think they have to manage so much from the center position. And so that’s going to be one of those battles that’s fun to watch.”
Brent Brennan on who to watch on the defensive line, especially with Zac Siulepa and Ezra Funa still not available?
“I think you’re going to love seeing – there’s been so many additions up there. I think [Deshawn] McKnight is going to be something that’s going to be fun to watch. That started to show up in spring practice, and as you go, I know Tre Smith is kind of the guy that everybody’s seen and everybody talks about, and he has flexibility to move inside and outside, but I think with what Coach Gonzales is going to do, you’re going to see a really aggressive, attacking, movement style front, and so those pieces are going to be a little more interchangeable than maybe what they have been in the past, where you’re like we’re going to line up in an odd or even front and this guy’s playing a 4i or a shade and he’s holding the A gap. It’s going to be a little bit different.”
Brent Brennan on Keyan Burnett’s return to Arizona after transferring to Kansas for the spring?
“When Keyan told me that he was interested in exploring that, I was respectful of it. I think it’s important that I’m respectful of that. It’s their option to do it. And so, if I’m a jerk, there’s no way we’re getting him back. Right? If I handle that moment poorly, there’s no way he’s going to want to come back and play for a team that I’m the head coach of. I love Keyan. {I} told him that when he – I said, ‘I’m sad you’re leaving. I love you, you know, and if things change, let us know.’ And things changed and we had a chance for him to come back to us.
And I think the cool thing about that is at the end of the day, he chose the University of Arizona, and he chose the players and the coaches in this program. He chose that, because he believes in that. He missed that, he missed how that felt, he missed what that experience had been for him. And that’s why he chose to come back.
Now, does he walk back in the door tight end one? Like, probably not at the start of fall practice. Because there’s other players there that were making really great progress. But, is he going to be in the mix? Is he going to be at the front of the line? Sure. And that’s one of those positions where the competition is going to be fierce, because there’s some players in there. Tyler Powell’s made a great move this offseason, really impressive move. And then we know Sam Olson is a productive player. So we know there’s good stuff there. And then we know there’s some young players stepping in there. We want to see what he can do too. So that’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Brent Brennan on replacing Tetairoa McMillan and Arizona’s revamped wide receiver room?
“I think that’s one of those questions that I’ve been getting a lot this summer. How are you going to replace T-Mac? And you don’t, like you don’t replace a player like that. He’s that talented. He’s that special. Now, do I think that we have more people in that room that can contribute this year than we did last year? I do. And that was part of the offseason. Number one, like early in the season last year, I said to Coach [Bobby] Wade, ‘We have to get faster at receiver.’ That was an absolute mantra. Like, I was driving that so hard. And like you said, in the receiver space, I can be a little bit of a hard ass because that’s my thing.
And so we needed more people to even that out, because what we felt so much last year with T-Mac was that people were able to push so much coverage to him, and it made it much more challenging to distribute the football, to attack – you want to be able to attack every space on the field. We weren’t able to do that effectively, and so I think the people that we added in that room, the combination of speed and also production, gives us a chance to feel great about that receiver room going forward.”
Brent Brennan on Noah Fifita on learning from his mistakes in the 2024 season and growing in 2025?
“Well, I think for him, just watching him practice over, you know, the last spring practice and just kind of the steps he made, the relationship he has with Coach Doege, the chemistry that he’s building with this new group of receivers and all the other pieces, the tight ends and the running back. Noah is so diligent, like, I don’t worry about that at all. That’s not a concern for me. If he was lazy, if he was not a player that worked every day, that studied film every day, that found every second of every day to work at getting better at football, then I’d be concerned. But he is one of the most conscientious, diligent workers I’ve ever seen, and he’ll blow through all that stuff. You’re going to love the way he looks when he starts playing this fall. It’s going to be fun.”
Brent Brennan on shifting from being outcome focused heading into the 2025 season?
“As we got into it, whether it was a single drill, whether it was in the practice environment, whether it was in a game, like even the games that we won didn’t feel good to the players. We didn’t win by enough. We didn’t play well enough on this side of the ball. And that part of it, I think was just watching them go through that. And then when we did lose a game, it was incredibly devastating. Working with our team, talking with our team, trying to pull us out of the funk that that put us in, just because we’ve been so focused on something so far down the road. And so, how do we pull us back to, like, the only way to get right is by doing the work that is required right now. And so trying to keep pulling us back.
The great thing about this team in this offseason has been how they’ve attacked the work. I’m not just talking about football. We had the highest team GPA in the history of Arizona Football this last semester. Like, they’re on it, all parts of it. And that’s what I’m talking about being focused on the process, that process of development, because when I watch them go through that, with Beyond Football with Tobruk Blaine, like all parts of our program are firing on all cylinders because these players are so committed to each other and they’re so committed to the process.”
Brent Brennan on how last season’s injuries created opportunities for younger players?
“I think anytime a player gets hurt or injured, someone else has to step up and take advantage of that opportunity. And I felt like there were several players that did that last season. Obviously, when we were going through that – we just went through an incredibly deep dive with our training staff, with our team doctors, with our strength and conditioning staff, about what that was. That’s also one of those things that, football’s a tough game and sometimes injuries are just part of it. And as heartbreaking as they are, when it happens, it’s an opportunity for someone else to step up.
That’s why the development of our depth in training camp is so critical, that we get guys lots of reps, and that we get guys lots of experience right now, and get guys competing in a high level and feeling that pressure of competition in their position group, so that they’re ready if there is something like that unfortunate to happen.”