The 2023 Arizona Wildcats football team represented the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

as a member of the

Pac-12 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the Western United States. It participates at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I level for all sports, and its Co ...

during the

2023 NCAA Division I FBS football season The 2023 NCAA Division I FBS football season was the 154th season of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at its highest level of competition, the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). ...

. The Wildcats were led by third-year head coach

Jedd Fisch Jedd Ari Fisch (born May 5, 1976) is an American football coach, currently the head coach at the University of Washington. He was previously the head coach at the University of Arizona for three seasons. Prior to his tenure at Arizona, Fisc ...

and played home games at

Arizona Stadium Arizona Stadium is an outdoor college football stadium in the southwestern United States, located on the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. It is the home field of the Arizona Wildcats of the Big 12 Conference. Origin ...

Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

. 2023 was Arizona's 124th season of competition and the program's 45th and final year in the Pac-12 Conference before it joined the

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. It consists of 16 full-member universities (3 private universities and 13 public universities) in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida ...

in 2024. The Wildcats ended the season on a seven-game winning streak and finished 10–3, achieving the fourth 10-win regular season in program history. The Wildcats netted a berth in the 2023 Alamo Bowl, the school's first bowl appearance since 2017, where they faced the

Oklahoma Sooners The Oklahoma Sooners are the college athletics in the United States , athletic teams that represent the University of Oklahoma, located in Norman, Oklahoma, Norman. The 19 men's and women's varsity teams are called the "Sooners", a reference to ...

. Arizona won 38–24, marking their first bowl victory since 2015. Arizona finished ranked 11th in the final AP Poll, their highest finish in the poll since the 1998 season. The Arizona Wildcats football team drew an average home attendance of 47,320 in 2023.

Offseason

Team departures

Over the course of the off-season, Arizona lost 40 total players. 5 players graduated, 3 declared for the 2023 NFL draft, while the other 33 entered the transfer portal.

Incoming transfers

Over the off-season, Arizona added thirteen players via transfer portal. According to 247 Sports, Arizona had the No. 51 ranked transfer class in the country.

Returning starters

Offense Defense Special teams * Bowl game not played. ^ Waiting decision for 2023 season. † Indicates player was a starter in 2021 but missed all of 2022 due to injury.

Recruiting class

Arizona signed 26 players in the class of 2023. The Wildcats' was ranked forty-fourth by

247Sports 247Sports is an American network of websites that focus mainly on college recruiting, athletic recruitment in college football and college basketball, basketball. It is owned and operated by Paramount Global, Paramount. The website hosts a large ...

and ranked forty-fifth by Rivals.com rankings. One signees were ranked in the ESPN 300 top prospect list. Arizona also signed walk-ons during national signing period. *= 247Sports Composite rating; ratings are out of 1.00. ''(five stars= 1.00–.98, four stars= .97–.90, three stars= .80–.89, two stars= .79–.70, no stars= <70)''
†= Despite being rated as a four and five star recruit by

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

, On3.com, Rivals.com and 247Sports.com, Dorman received a four star 247Sports Composite rating.
Δ= Left the Arizona program following signing but prior to the 2023 season. 2023 overall class rankings

Walk-ons

Preseason

Spring game

The Wildcats were scheduled to hold spring practices on March 13–14, 2023, with spring game is tentatively scheduled to take place in Tucson, Arizona on April 15, 2023, with Blue Team Holds off Red Team 23–19 in Spring Game.

Award watch lists

Listed in the order that they were released

Pac-12 Media Day

The Pac-12 Media Day was held on July 21, 2023, at the TBD in

Las Vegas, NV Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-larg ...

(

Pac-12 Network The Pac-12 Network (P12N), sometimes referred to as Pac-12 Networks, was an American sports-oriented digital cable and satellite television network owned by the Pac-12 Conference. The network's studio and production facilities were headquartere ...

). The preseason polls will be released in July 2023.

Preseason All-Pac-12

''Source:''
Second team

Schedule

Personnel

Roster

Game summaries

vs Northern Arizona

at Mississippi State

vs UTEP

at Stanford

vs No. 7 Washington

at No. 9 USC

at No. 19 Washington State

vs No. 11 Oregon State

vs No. 19 UCLA

at Colorado

vs No. 22 Utah

at Arizona State

This was the Wildcats' first win over the Sun Devils in Tempe since

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

. As well as their first time beating the Sun Devils in consecutive seasons since the

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

and

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

seasons.

vs Oklahoma (
Alamo Bowl The Alamo Bowl is an NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision college football bowl game played annually since 1993 in the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. Since 2010 it matches the second choice team from the Pac-12 Conference and the second ...
)

Wide receiver

Jacob Cowing Jacob Henry Cowing (born February 4, 2001) is an American professional football wide receiver and punt returner for the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for UTEP before transferring to Arizona. ...

was named Offensive MVP. Safety Gunner Maldonado was named Defensive MVP.

Awards and honors

''Sources:''

All-Pac 12

Rankings

References

{{Arizona Wildcats football navbox

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

Arizona Wildcats football seasons Alamo Bowl champion seasons Arizona Football