As June starts to roll into July, and July eventually leads us to the start of fall camps at the beginning of August, the 2023 college football season will be here before we know it. What a season it projects to be in the Pac-12 Conference, as well. With a handful of College Football Playoff contenders, and a group of Heisman Trophy candidates leading their prospective teams, we could be set up for one of the best football seasons out west that we’ve seen in decades. To help get us prepared, we at Ducks Wire wanted to go through each team in the conference and give a comprehensive breakdown of each school, breaking down their 2023 outlook. Welcome to our Pac-12 Previews. New editions will be published every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday leading up to the start of fall camp.
It’s not a great year to be a middling Pac-12 team that likely needs to reach bowl eligibility in order to avoid a coaching change in 2023.
Unfortunately for Jedd Fisch and the Arizona Wildcats, that seems to be the situation going into this new season. Things have not gone swimmingly over the past decade in Tucson, and while there have been a few signs of life — offensively, at least — in the past year, that needs to start resulting in wins, and postseason appearances for a school that reached the Pac-12 Championship Game less than a decade ago.
The talent is there, offensively. Jayden de Laura is an extremely capable quarterback with elite weapons in WR Jacob Cowing and WR Tetairoa McMillan at his disposal. RB Michael Wiley is a proven veteran out west, and TE Tanner McLachlan made our list of potential breakout players in 2023.
Defensively is where the improvement needs to be made. Although they lost a couple of their top secondary players in Christian Roland-Wallace and Christan Young, the Wildcats utilized the transfer portal to add guys like LB Justin Flowe and DE Taylor Upshaw to the roster. Will that be enough to get the job done?
We’ll see, but it is certainly an uphill battle for the Wildcats. Here is our full 2023 season preview for Arizona.