Arizona finished 14th in the Big 12 last season in total offense. It was a clear problem that head coach Brent Brennan needed to address.
How did he do that? Brennan went out and got a new offensive coordinator. Seth Doege will be tasked with turning around the offense this season.
Doege brings an up-tempo offense to the desert, and is going to be starting fresh with so much of the Arizona offense being new to the team.
“Everybody’s really starting from scratch, so there’s a major process of becoming one and all doing it together,” Doege said.
For Doege, it’s not just about being a fast offense, it’s also about executing the plays being called.
“The standard can be faster, and so we’re trying to push it to the extreme limits,” Doege said. “If we can execute it, then I think we can be really dangerous.”
Doege was not satisfied with how the offense was looking the first few days. Not to say that it was not executing, but he knows it can be faster and better.
This came as a surprise to junior quarterback Noah Fifita.
“I thought we played fast today, and Coach Doege was disappointed in our urgency and our energy,” Fifita said last week. “So obviously a long way to go to get where we want to be, but Coach Doege has shown that his system works and that he knows exactly what he’s doing, so we’re gonna follow him to the end of it.”
This season is going to be a change of scenery for Fifita, in many ways.
He will be wearing a different number, switching from 11 to 1, the number he donned in high school.
What went into the decision to change his number? Perhaps some inspiration from a member of the coaching staff.
“I just wanted to be like (receivers coach) Bobby Wade, that’s really what it was,” Fifita said. “Then also, just going back to my roots. I was extremely excited to kind of go back to the number I was back in high school, and the number I was growing up.”
Not only is this going to be a new offensive system for him, for the first time in his career he won’t be throwing to his best friend Tetairoa McMillan.
This means he is going to need to find a new top target. Lucky for him, Doege’s offensive scheme is designed for wide receivers to produce.
“I think we have a lot of speed, so it’s going to be fun to get creative and find different matchups,” Doege said.
A candidate for Fifita’s next top target could come down to a few players, such as Chris Hunter, Jeremiah Patterson, or even Oregon transfer Kris Hutson.
“All of them bring a little bit something unique and different, from a skill set level, to the table,” Doege said. “It’s going to be fun to figure out what they can do and what they’re really, really good at.”
Time will tell how much the new offense will produce under Doege, but what we know for sure is that Fifita will be the leader of the offensive side of the ball.
Leadership is something that both Brennan and Doege are challenging Fifita to grow in. Not only with his play but with his voice.
“I’m not a rah rah guy, I’m not a big vocal guy,” Fifita said. “So just kind of getting more comfortable in that aspect is definitely something that I’m working on.”