On Brent Brennan vs. Rich Rodriguez and other Week 6 thoughts | Michael Lev

Rich Rodriguez won 43 games during his time at Arizona, the fifth most in program history.

Two of the coaches ahead of him are Dick Tomey (95 wins) and Pop McKale (80). Another is Larry Smith (48). Pretty good company.

Current UA coach Brent Brennan could — and should — surpass Rodriguez’s accomplishments here.

How success is measured moving forward will be interesting because college football has changed so much since Rodriguez’s Tucson tenure (2012-17) — and more changes are coming.

Perhaps the most impressive part of Rodriguez’s UA résumé is that he led Arizona to five bowl appearances in six seasons. Only one other coach has done that here — Tomey, aka The Goat.

Unfortunately, bowl season isn’t what it used to be. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that postseason bowls are on the endangered-species list. But it’s a safe bet that the number of bowls will shrink if/when the College Football Playoff expands to 24 teams.

Playoff participation has become the measuring stick for success in the sport. One of the few positive offshoots of an expanded playoff — which I’m mostly opposed to; that’s another column for another time — is that more programs would be able to claim “successful” seasons.

The CFP was born in 2014 and featured only four teams until ’24, so any comparison between Rodriguez and Brennan isn’t apples to apples. I still believe that making a bowl game, in most instances, would qualify as a success for Arizona in the 12-team Playoff era. Once 24 gets here — and Playoff participation becomes more graspable — that barometer will change.

Assuming Brennan can maintain the culture he has implemented and retain key assistant coaches — the latter will be much tougher than the former — he should be able to regularly win 7-8 games per season. Whether that’s good enough for you depends on your standards and expectations.

Rodriguez averaged 7.2 wins over his six seasons. That included the high of a 10-win campaign in 2014 and the low of an injury-riddled 3-9 nightmare in ’16. Every other season, Rodriguez’s Wildcats were in that zone of 7-8 wins.

Let’s say Arizona’s worst-case scenario this year is a record of 8-5. That would give Brennan 21 wins over three seasons and an average of seven — just below Rodriguez’s mark.

Although it’s foolhardy to try to predict the future in college football, I feel confident in saying that Brennan will be here longer than Rodriguez was. Or Smith, who coached the Wildcats from 1980-86.

If he were to coach here for 10 seasons, averaging seven wins per annum, Brennan would be the third-winningest coach in UA history behind Tomey and McKale.

That’s a long way off and possibly a pipe dream; Brennan’s sole focus is Saturday’s matchup with Rodriguez and West Virginia in Morgantown, as it should be.

But with the program in a good place and a coach who wants to be here indefinitely, it feels like it’s within the realm of possibilities.

Take that for data!

A follower on social media inquired about Arizona’s record in morning games (before noon our time) and when traveling three time zones away over the past five seasons — both relevant for Saturday. Let’s take a look:

The Wildcats had no games that fit either criterion from 2021-23, when they were still part of the Pac-12. Makes sense.

Since moving to the Big 12, they’ve had four games that qualify for one, the other or both. Their record is 2-2.

Arizona has played in the Eastern Time Zone twice in the past two seasons — at UCF in 2024 and at Cincinnati in ’25. The UCF game was easily the worst of Brennan’s tenure, a complete no-show for a 3:30 p.m. local kickoff. The final score was 56-12, and it could have been worse.

Last year’s Cincinnati game hit the exacta — an ET locale with a 10 a.m. body-clock kickoff. The game also took place in mid-November with cloudy skies and a game-time temperature of 63 degrees — not exactly Tucson-esque.

Arizona passed the test. The Wildcats won 30-24.

Arizona had two other pre-noon MST starts last season, at Houston and vs. Baylor. The Wildcats lost to the Cougars 31-28 and beat the Bears 41-17.

I don’t think the early start time Saturday will negatively impact Arizona; the team practices about 9 a.m. most days. But anytime you travel that far — about 1,800 miles — for a road game, it’s always a challenge.

(Rincon) Market report

Going up: Pro Cats

The past two weekends have been nothing short of phenomenal for a pair of Arizona football alums. A week after hitting the winning field goal at the buzzer from 56 yards to beat Dallas, Baltimore kicker Tyler Loop hit a 64-yarder vs. Tennessee — the second longest in Ravens history. Then, on “Sunday Night Football,” Carolina receiver Tetairoa McMillan put on a show. T-Mac had the best game of his young career, logging 14 receptions for 192 yards and two touchdowns as the Panthers defeated the Detroit Lions. He was named NFC Offensive Player of the Week.

Going down: Valley activation

Is the Kenny Dillingham era at Arizona State at a crossroads? It might be following a shocking 55-19 home loss to Baylor last week. This season has plenty of runway left, but when you look at the trend line, it’s not encouraging. After going 11-3 in 2024, the Sun Devils went 8-5 last year. Now they’re 2-2. They have a “get right” game against Hawaii on Saturday. Then comes a trip to Texas Tech. ASU also has road games against BYU, UCF and Arizona. Dillingham is in no danger of losing his job. But the Valley doesn’t feel super activated at the moment.

A question from my X

“What was the biggest factor in Arizona's dramatically improved ability to run the ball against Cincinnati? Line play? RBs running hard and with vision? WR blocking improvement?” — @brettdberry via X

All of the above.

It takes many elements for a running attack to flourish, from scheme to execution to talent to physicality.

Brennan cited the blocking of the backup receivers who were forced into action, in particular 170-pound sophomore Isaiah Mizell. That’s mostly about effort.

Offensive coordinator Seth Doege mentioned finding space against the Bearcats’ three-down front and exploiting them with tempo. But the first thing he said was: “We just keep chopping wood.”

That’s critical. It’s easy to stray from the run game if it isn’t working at the outset. Doege has been guilty of that at times.

Arizona has been more committed to running the ball since the fourth quarter against Washington State; playing from ahead certainly contributes to that.

But it appeared that the mentality it takes to run the ball regularly and effectively carried over. Hopefully that will continue this Saturday and beyond.

Threads

A lot to choose from this week, including West Virginia’s sharp “Coal Rush” kits. But we can’t get over how cool — pun intended — Utah’s latest hand-painted helmets look. As part of a “white-out” theme, the Utes are wearing white helmets with a frosted red-script Utah above a landscape of snow-covered mountains. The lettering has icicles hanging from it and is dotted with snowflakes. Artist Armando Villarreal created the look, which is both brilliant and beautiful.

What he said ...

“I thought for 57 minutes they played really, really hard. ... It really pissed me off that the standard changed with three minutes to go in the game.” — UA defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales on Arizona giving up a late touchdown in last week’s 34-7 win over Cincinnati.

What he meant ...

“I wanted the dang shoutout. Shutouts are really frickin’ hard to get. Should I have enjoyed the win more? Probably. But I’m a coach. I’m just not wired that way. I’m working on it. Offseason project when I’m not breaking down film of Air Force, who we face in 2029.”

The other side

“Let’s scrape it all down to the studs and let’s see exactly what we gotta do to fix it because we’ve got good players. I know my coaches are working hard at it, and we’re going to do everything we can to get it right because we can’t play defense like that and beat anybody.” — Rodriguez on West Virginia’s defense, which ranks last in the Big 12 in multiple categories.

Pick to click (aka #fadelev)

Entering Friday, I had a somewhat respectable 18-20 record picking Big 12 games against the spread on “The Wildcast.” Yet I’m 1-4 here. These are desperate times. We’re going with Oklahoma State, minus-10.5, to take care of business at home vs. UCF. This pick is about firepower. The Cowboys have it (first in the Big 12 in total offense and passing offense). The Knights don’t (last in total offense, 15th in passing). Even after taking a 17-0 lead in the third quarter last week at Houston, UCF lost by 10. OSU wins this one by at least two touchdowns. (season record: 1-4)

One last thing

Even though he has two fumbles, Arizona needs to utilize running back Antwan Roberts more than it has.

The fifth-year transfer has serious juice.

“He’s got a different burst,” said Doege, who coached Roberts at Marshall.

Roberts leads Arizona running backs with seven rushes of 10-plus yards. He’s done that in 16 carries.

Kedrick Reescano and Quincy Craig have six apiece. They’ve carried the ball 61 and 22 times, respectively.

Roberts is averaging 10.1 yards per carry. That’s unsustainable, of course. But Roberts’ ability to get to the edge of the defense is real.

Ismail Mahdi provided that in the fourth quarter vs. WSU. But Mahdi likely won’t be eligible the rest of the way. Roberts can fill the Wildcats’ need for speed.