With Noah Fifita back at helm, Arizona aiming for new heights: 'I think we've got the best quarterback in the country'
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TUCSON, Ariz. — Here in the office of Arizona offensive coordinator Seth Doege, you will hear the story of a college football species that has practically gone extinct.
Doege, who played quarterback at Texas Tech a decade and a half ago, points to the sofa up against the wall. That's where Noah Fifita was sitting seven months ago after Arizona completed its surprising 9-4 season, when Doege asked a question that would determine both of their futures.
"There's no doubt he's the best quarterback in the league, so people are hitting this guy up to tamper, to say, 'Hey, we'll pay you $3.5 million to come play for a year," Doege told Yahoo Sports. "And you know how it is. When you go 9-4 on a team that was picked dead last in the Big 12, now all the coaches are getting hit up [for new jobs].
"So I sat him down and said, 'Dude, what is your plan? Man to man, brother to brother, you know there's real love here. What are you gonna do? Because if you're leaving, I need to think about what I need to do. But if you're staying, I'm with you. And then he said the exact same thing, and that was that."
At Arizona, which looks like a dark-horse contender for the Big 12 title, most everything revolves around Fifita and his unconventional decision to not merely spend all five years at the same school but at a program with a somewhat tortured football history and a relatively low national profile.
While many of Fifita's peers in the Big 12 quarterback ranks left for greener pastures after last season — Josh Hoover transferred from TCU to Indiana, Rocco Becht from Iowa State to Penn State, Sam Leavitt from Arizona State to LSU and Brendan Sorsby from Cincinnati to Texas Tech — Arizona managed to pull off one an unthinkable coup in this era.
It kept an elite quarterback who could have pocketed millions more by playing somewhere else.
"We were very concerned because there's a business side to this thing now," Arizona head coach Brent Brennan said. "I think everybody understands that. But I also think that's one of the things that makes Noah unique and special. He's just built different."
How different? Last season, Fifita didn't do postgame interviews after wins because he wanted his teammates to get more credit but volunteered to be the spokesman after every loss.
How different? When the daughter of defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales posted on social media in February that the family was going to have her birthday dinner, Fifita showed up unprompted at the restaurant with flowers and balloons. Doege has a similar story of Fifita knocking on their door with gifts for his daughter's birthday. "We didn't tell him," Doege said. "I don't know how he found out."
How different? Arizona's staff will often hear about Fifita popping up around town to feed the homeless or coach a youth flag football team or host an event raising awareness for breast cancer but can't convince him to do any publicity around his charitable work.
How different? At Arizona, there's almost been a curse of high expectations dating back to 1994 when a famous Sports Illustrated cover anointed the Wildcats preseason No. 1 — a prediction that looked ridiculous when they went 8-4. But now, because of Fifita, a program that hasn't won a conference championship in the 21st century is embracing a completely different standard for success.
"People around here are so afraid to be invested because every time they get invested, it gets messed up," Gonzales said. "Those teams that didn't [meet the expectations] had great coaches, great culture and all those things. But I think the biggest opportunity this team has, that those other teams didn't, is I think we've got the best quarterback in the country."
Why Fifita chose Arizona over bigger payday
When that is how much you mean to a college football program these days, particularly as a proven commodity at quarterback, you can practically name your price. Though the numbers are opaque, everyone at Arizona openly acknowledges that Fifita could have left after the 2023 season when former coach Jedd Fisch took the Washington job, after 2024 when the Wildcats went a miserable 4-8 in Brennan's first year and after last season when he threw for 3,228 yards and was voted to the All-Big 12 first team in a conference with several good quarterbacks.
Though chief of staff Ben Thienes said Arizona figured out how to maximize what it can do financially for Fifita, he has left money on the table each offseason. Not only is that rare in a world where Sorsby and Leavitt were lured away for deals reportedly in the $5 million range, but there's no guarantee Fifita — who is listed at 5-foot-10 but is realistically a bit shorter — will make it up in the NFL.
"It's not like he turned down $300,000 to stay," Doege said. "You're talking $2 million plus. Me and you would have a hard time turning that down. Most adults would be like, 'See ya.'"
So the question is why? Why take less money to stay at a place with a basketball school reputation, at a program that isn't playing a lot of big national TV games and hasn't historically been a contender for the College Football Playoff?
The answer, if you could boil it down to one word, is that Fifita's life here feels settled.
He owns a home near campus. He recently got engaged to his girlfriend. His brother, Dash, is now a freshman linebacker on the team and lives with him. And for the first time since becoming a starting quarterback, he's playing in the same system two years in a row.
"This year's kind of the culmination of everything," Fifita said. "I'm with my brother. I'm with the offensive coordinator that I love and trust and a team that I really do enjoy playing with and being around. And I do feel like we have everything we need to do something special."
Fifita does not run away from his personal goals — "I always dreamt of being at the Heisman ceremony and pictured myself in New York receiving that trophy," he said — but is ultimately focused on the opportunity to carve out an unmatched college football legacy if he could deliver a Big 12 title to Arizona.
Because while fans focus on the touchdowns and the big plays he creates, there is a behind-the-scenes imprint on the program that makes Fifita influential in unique ways for a college player.
Everything from offensive staff hires to personnel decisions has been oriented toward what Brennan believes will maximize Fifita's ability. Arizona retained players and added players out of the transfer portal because of the opportunity to play with him this season. And even on a day-to-day basis, keeping Fifita healthy is at the forefront of both how Doege designs the offense and how Arizona's defense approaches practice.
One of the five graphics Gonzales shows every day in the defensive meeting says: "Do not reach, touch or even get close to Noah," which is something Gonzales said he has not done in the past with other quarterbacks.
"If they get too close, I'll blow the whistle," Gonzales said. "We're not gonna take a chance of him hitting a helmet with his thumb or someone reaching and driving his elbow. He's the best quarterback in the country and if we f*** it up because we hit him in practice, shame on us coaches. Our guys know how important he is."
They also know what he's sacrificed to finish out his career at the same school where he started.
Most elite college quarterbacks want the opportunity to contend for championships, to play in the biggest national television games and showcase themselves for the NFL, and to make as much money as possible. Historically, Arizona would not be the first place that comes to mind for pursuing any of those goals, which may be why Fifita is not a household name like Texas' Arch Manning or Oregon's Dante Moore.
"I think everyone's missing the opportunity to watch this incredible football player who continues to make the choices that no football players are making in college football right now," Brennan said. "He's the best story in college football. He believes in his process here. He believes in what this place has given him and what his relationship with the school and the city and the people that are in this building.
"When your best player is also the best dude on your team, yeah, the impact is exponential."
Arizona, Fifita flying under the radar ahead of season
At the same time, Arizona is not exactly a woebegone underdog story. Though there have been dark periods in program history, there were blips of success in the 1980s and 1990s. Rich Rodriguez got Arizona to a Fiesta Bowl and had five winning seasons in six years. Fisch, Brennan's predecessor, went 10-3 and had Arizona on the cusp of the top-10 before he bolted to Washington.
And even last year, the Wildcats were just a couple of plays away from an 11-1 regular season and berth in the Big 12 title game. If not for a double-overtime loss against BYU and a last-second field goal loss to Houston, Arizona would be one of the buzzier teams heading into 2026 and Fifita would be among those players at the top of the preseason Heisman odds.
"I think he's tremendously disrespected nationally because people don't look at him and say, 'Oh, he's an NFL guy,'" Doege said. "People talk about Sorsby before he got in trouble because he's 6-foot-3 and 225 pounds and has it all. But we played in the same league. They actually played each other and it wasn't even close who the best quarterback on the field was.
"I'm a little bit biased just because I get to be around him every day and this dude is a warrior. This dude might have the best mentality I've ever been around. I almost have to pinch myself every day to really enjoy every single moment with him because it's not always this good."
I asked Brennan if he thought he'd ever have another player like Fifita in the current environment of college sports who would stay in the same place for five years despite some ups and downs and the opportunity to make more money elsewhere.
After a pause, he said he'd like to think so in large part because of the culture Fifita has helped established for Arizona to attract others who align with those values.
"We're going to have to win old school here a little bit because we know we're never going to have the biggest checkbook," Brennan said. "We're going to have to win with toughness and connection and good football and playing for the guy next to you. We're going to have to do it that way, and that's OK. That's how football's always been played."
It's unknown how much of that can endure after Fifita departs. But for now, as he completes one of the more unlikely careers in college football, Arizona hopes to keep riding a unicorn to places it has never been.
"It's never been about money," Fifita said. "Being able to be in the NIL space, being able to make money at this age, is a blessing no doubt. But I'm comfortable here because I have a culture, staff and a team that believes in me and that has my back. I am in a really good position where I'm part of a team that can do something that's never been done in Tucson. That legacy and those relationships are more important than money.
"It's not really about being different. I'm just doing what I felt like God wanted me to. That's how I want to finish my career."
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