Arizona Football Impresses at Big 12 Media Day in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – The Arizona Wildcats were represented by Head Coach Brent Brennan, quarterback Noah Fifita, wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, linebacker Jacob Manu, and safety Gunner Maldonado at Big 12 Media Day at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas Wednesday. 

The Wildcats landed in Las Vegas with excitement and anticipation of their first media day as new members of the Big 12 at the home of the Las Vegas Raiders. 

Brennan, Fifita, McMillan, Manu, and Maldonado met with regional and national media representatives to talk about the excitement surrounding the conference move which will be made official on Aug. 2.

Below are quotes from Coach Brennan’s press conference as well as content captured throughout the day.  

Coach Brennan's opening statement from the podium: Hello. Really excited to be here. What an incredible day this has been. I'm not sure it's an advantage or a disadvantage being last, but I've been talking a lot today so I may need to hydrate as we're going.

Could not be more excited to be at the University of Arizona. It's an incredible opportunity, something that I've thought about for a very, very long time, and I'm excited about everything that's happening there right now.

We've got great new leadership in our athletics department with Desiree´ Reed-Francois. There is all kinds of excitement about the football team we had a year ago, so there's tremendous momentum. And a lot of those players chose to stay together and move forward together, which I think is rare and one of the best stories in college football this season, which I think needs to be told more often.

Ticket sales and excitement for joining the Big 12 Conference is extremely high.

We're fired up, can't wait to get this thing going. Bear Down.

Q. You mentioned the guys who chose to stay and stick together. Keeping Noah seemed really key. Pretty common today, a guy loses his coach, goes to a good school, he just goes with him. How were you able to keep Noah, and how key was that to keeping everybody together?

BRENNAN: I would say TMac and Jacob Manu and Jonah Savaiinaea had more to do -- Gunner Maldonado, more to do with keeping Noah Fifita there than I did.

The truth is these players really loved each other. Coach Fisch and that staff recruited a bunch of quality young men that were incredibly committed and connected, and I think that's what contributed to them wanting to stay.

Q. Noah said when you were first hired, he got about 25 guys to come talk to you. What were those conversations like? What did you ask those guys?

BRENNAN: I didn't ask them anything. I let them ask me. I thought it was important I give them an opportunity to get to know me, like who I was, what I was going to be about. And it was speed dating. They asked me a thousand questions in a two-hour span, and at the end of it -- some of them were silly and fun and we were laughing and smiling and joking, and some of them serious. It was a really great kind of icebreaker for all of us to get to know each other. And I think Noah spearheading it was a huge part of that.

But then at the end of the conversation, I asked the players if they wanted to do it again the next day, and they all agreed. So the next day, the same group, plus or minus a few, got together, and we had another two-hour conversation just about my philosophy, how I coach, what I believe in, what my family is like, what color cleats we're going to wear. It was all over the map. But it was a really great opportunity for us to get to know each other and for them to have an understanding that as a head coach they're going to have a lot of -- I'm the kind of coach that I want them to have input in what we're doing.

Now, at the end of the day, I know those decisions sit with me, but I want them to have input into what kind of program, what kind of culture we're going to build at the U of A.

Q. TMac, a great player, obviously one of the top receivers in college football. What separates him from some of the others, both as a player and a person?

BRENNAN: TMac is one of those rare people that is actually fiercely competitive but is having fun during the competition. Like almost the way Steph Curry plays basketball. He's having so much -- he looks like he's having so much more fun than everybody else.

Then as a talent or as a receiver -- I'm an old receiver guy myself, not nearly as good as any of the guys I'm coaching right now -- but TMac's body control, his ability to finish 50/50 balls -- I think so many games in college or the NFL come down to a 50/50 throw on a short yardage play where you can't run it because they have too many people in the box, and his ability to finish those throws is -- to finish those catches, and Noah's ability to throw them makes TMac extremely rare.

Q. Obviously going now into a new conference with a bunch of new teams, as well, with Arizona State, Colorado and Utah, is there any comfort in going to a new conference with a bunch of schools that you were very familiar with in the past?

BRENNAN: I think that helps. I think that helps. In maybe the simplest way it helps. It's just those venues are all places that I've coached games in. So that part of it, I think that's the unknown part for us joining the Big 12, is the new venues that we haven't played in yet, that our players haven't felt the crowd at some of these places or what that feels like on game day, because I think having a great home crowd kind of can impact the team.

I'm also excited for all these teams to come to Arizona Stadium and feel the ZonaZoo and feel our crowd and our fans and the city of Tucson and how they rally for the U of A.

Q. Coach, you guys have had a great deal of success as of late in Southern California, specifically in the Trinity League, and now that you're a West Coast guy and coming to Arizona into a new conference, will you expand that recruiting footprint? Are you going to stay true to the roots and stay West Coast centric?

BRENNAN: No, I think that's one of the really cool things about joining the Big 12 is it gives us a chance to get into some new markets where we're going to play multiple games a year. And because of our location, I think it does give us unique access to California as an Arizona school, but it also -- now this year we're playing two games in Utah, and we've got four opponents in Texas, Florida.

I think that part of it is exciting because it does open some new markets for you because you are going to play games, and all the players want to know can their families watch them play. That's such a big question in the recruiting process.

I think it's exciting for us, but I also think the state of California has always been good to the University of Arizona, and I think with our track record there and our coaching staff's relationships, it'll continue to be.

Q. You talked about the '90s generation. You have Duane Akina as your defensive coordinator, Dino Babers as your offensive coordinator. Can you talk about that dynamic of bringing that old-school Arizona together?

BRENNAN: Well, I thought it was just important that I had people on the staff that love and care about the University of Arizona. We also added Bobby Wade who was a great player there in the late '90s, early 2000s. Brandon Sanders is in the building, Chuck Cecil is in the building, Ricky Hunley is in the building.

It's so important for me that there's players that played in the uniform, that care deeply about the U of A touching our team, involved with our team. I really want that to be a part of it.

I think that's one of those things that it's hard to have if you haven't lived it, and those guys have lived it at such a high level, and I want our players to have that around them and to experience it.