Greg McElroy believes Arizona has an opportunity to shake things up during its first football season as a member of the Big 12. The Wildcats are one of four former Pac-12 teams to make the move to the conference in 2024 along with Arizona State, Colorado and Utah.
Arizona is coming off of a 10-3 season, its best in the past decade, and also returns starting quarterback Noah Fifita and 1,000-yard receiver Tetairoa McMillan. It currently has the sixth-best odds to win the Big 12 at +1000 according to DraftKings.
The Wildcats have not won a conference championship since 1993 when the Pac-12 was still the Pac-10 and also have a new head coach this season in Brent Brennan. However, McElroy noted that he view the Big 12 as being “wide open” due to the addition of so many new teams and isn’t ruling out the possibility for Arizona.
“I think the Big 12 is wide open,” he said. “The gap between 1-16 feels more narrow to me than any other conference, partly because I don’t know who’s one. I think it’s Oklahoma State, but you could make a strong case for Kansas State. You could make a strong case for Arizona. You could make a strong case for Utah. I don’t know exactly how the Big 12’s going to shake itself out. They have eight new members in the last two years.
“Could Arizona potentially ascend to the top of a conference that is very, very new and find themselves in the driver’s seat with what they bring back at quarterback in Noah Fifita? What they bring back at receiver in Tetairoa McMillan? They’re really good at their skill positions and were rock solid defensively in the front last year. So if what Mike Gundy says is true and it becomes a line-of-scrimmage league, maybe Arizona can cause some problems for a lot of folks.”
The Wildcats also lost 27 players through the transfer portal, so there are some left behind that they will need to fill. That includes running back Jonah Coleman, the team’s leading rusher.
Oklahoma and Texas, which are now gone to the SEC, have combined for seven of the past nine Big 12 titles. Additionally, half of the teams that make up the conference now were not in the league before 2023.
That certainly sets the stage for a new team to emerge atop the Big 12 these next few seasons, and Arizona stands just as good a chance as anyone in 2024.
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