College Football Expert Has Harsh Assessment of Arizona Wildcats’ Performance
The Arizona Wildcats came into the 2024 season with some pretty high expectations.
Despite having a new coaching staff, with Brent Brennan replacing Jedd Fisch after he accepted the job with the Washington Huskies, people were high on their chances to build off the positive momentum created in 2023.
The team jumped out to a 2-0 start, albeit somewhat shakily, with victories over the New Mexico Lobos and Northern Arizona Lumberjacks. But, they were served a dose of reality in their third game of the season against the Kansas State Wildcats.
While it didn’t count officially as a Big 12 conference game, as it was scheduled before realignment, it was a rude welcoming to what life would be like in the new super conference for the Wildcats.
They were defeated handily in Manhattan, 31-7, heading into the bye week on a low note.
Whatever Brennan and his coaching staff did during the time off, it worked wonders. They went on the road again for their next game, this time against the Utah Utes, and pulled off an impressive upset.
Arizona won the game 23-10 and looked to have gotten things back on track. Unfortunately, there have been basically zero positives since that point.
The Wildcats are now riding a five-game losing streak, dropping games against the Texas Tech Red Raiders, BYU Cougars, Colorado Buffaloes, West Virginia Mountaineers and UCF Knights.
Those struggles have led to Bill Connelly of ESPN wondering if Arizona is the biggest collapse in college football in 2024.
“After last year's 10-win campaign, Arizona began the season near the top of the Big 12's pecking order. It's been a free fall all year. The Wildcats have only overachieved against projections in one game (their road win over a Utah team also on this list), and they've underachieved by at least 28 points in two of their last three games. I know injuries have taken a toll, but damn,” the college football expert wrote.
This is certainly not what anyone expected from the team coming into the season. There were a few question marks, but nothing that had projections and fans expecting them to fall short of even bowl eligibility potentially.
If the Wildcats want to play beyond the regular season, they are going to have to run the table, defeating the Houston Cougars, TCU Horned Frogs and Arizona State Sun Devils. Given how they have looked in recent weeks, that is an incredibly tall task.
