Arizona
UCF opponent previews: Arizona enters Big 12 armed with Noah Fifita, Tetairoa McMillan
- Nickname: Wildcats
- Location: Tucson, Ariz.
- Enrollment: 51,134
- Home field: Arizona Stadium (Capacity: 50,782)
- Conference: Big 12
- 2023 record: 10-3, 7-2 Pac-12
- All-time series record vs. UCF: First meeting
Editor’s note: This is the ninth installment in a 12-part series highlighting UCF’s 2024 football opponents.
UCF grounded Doak Walker Award winner Ollie Gordon last year to keep its Space Game record perfect. To do so again, the Citronauts will need to shut down one the nation’s premier passing combinations.
Big 12 newcomer Arizona, which begins the year ranked No. 21 in the US LBM Coaches Poll, visits the Bounce House for the first time on Nov. 2 — right in the heart of a crucial conference stretch for UCF. The Wildcats earned three first-place votes in the league’s preseason media poll, settling for fifth behind Utah, Kansas State, Oklahoma and Kansas.
Last season, Arizona posted double digits in the win column for the first time since 2014, closing with seven straight victories including five against ranked opponents. It punctuated a resurgent campaign with an Alamo Bowl triumph over Oklahoma, which exited the Big 12 officially in July to join the SEC.
For context, the Wildcats began the decade with just one win in their first 17 games.
UCF, meanwhile, is not only undefeated in its seven Space Game showdowns but has done so in dominant fashion. Its all-time margin of victory is 349-147, an average of 28.9 points per game.
Brent Brennan takes over for Jedd Fisch, hires Dino Babers as OC
Fisch completed a gigantic turnaround, a nine-win improvement in the space of two seasons. However, the former Jacksonville Jaguars offensive coordinator bolted for Washington when Kalen DeBoer was named Nick Saban’s successor at Alabama.
Arizona filled its vacancy with Brent Brennan, who spent the previous seven seasons at San Jose State. The Spartans have gone bowling six times since 2000, and three of those instances came during Brennan’s regime.
Brennan, 51, played five seasons at UCLA as a wide receiver and lettered for the Bruins during their 1993 Rose Bowl run. He worked as a Division I assistant for 16 years before taking the head job at San Jose State, where he posted a 34-48 overall record.
Upon taking the job, Brennan promoted Duane Akina to defensive coordinator and hired Dino Babers as the offensive coordinator. Babers, an Arizona assistant from 1995-2000, lasted eight years as the head coach at Syracuse. He compiled a 41-55 record with two bowl trips.
Noah Fifita, Tetairoa McMillan stay loyal to Arizona amid coaching change
Top Offensive Returners: OL Josh Baker, QB Noah Fifita, WR Montana Lemonious-Craig, OL Leif Magnuson, WR Tetairoa McMillan, OL Wendell Moe Jr., OL Raymond Pulido, OL Jonah Savaiinaea
Top Defensive Returners: DB Tacario Davis, LB Justin Flowe, DB Dalton Johnson, DB Gunner Maldonado, LB Jacob Manu, DB Genesis Smith, DB Treydan Stukes, DL Ta’ita’i Uiagalelei
Once Fisch departed Tucson, it could well have been open season on the Arizona roster. A fair number of Wildcats followed their coach to the Pacific Northwest (more on that in a bit). But, all things considered, the team’s most important players shockingly stayed put.
That includes the über-talented quarterback/wide receiver pairing of Noah Fifita and Tetairoa McMillan. The duo — high school teammates at Servite in Anaheim, California — announced they had “unfinished business” in Tucson during a media timeout of the Wildcats’ men’s basketball game against UCLA on Jan. 20.
Fifita sported the fifth-best completion percentage in the Football Bowl Subdivision last year (72.4%), throwing for 2,869 yards with 25 touchdowns and six picks. McMillan ranked fifth in the nation with 1,402 receiving yards, scoring on 10 of his 90 receptions.
McMillan checks in at No. 5 on Pro Football Focus’ big board for 2025 NFL draft prospects, and he’s not the lone returning Wildcat gaining first-round traction. Cornerback Tacario Davis (No. 32), at 6-foot-4 and 195 pounds, led the Pac-12 with 15 pass breakups. Offensive lineman Jonah Savaiinaea posted the team’s second-highest blocking grade, per PFF’s metrics, and allowed just two sacks.
All-Pac-12 linebacker Jacob Manu paced the conference with 116 tackles, surpassing double digits on five occasions. He added 9½ tackles for loss, 6½ sacks, 13 quarterback hurries, two pass breakups and an interception. Arizona has five of its top six tacklers back, including starting safeties Dalton Johnson and Gunner Maldonado.
Arizona loses D-linemen, adds talented New Mexico running back
Transfer Portal Additions: DL Jarra Anderson (Memphis), RB Quali Conley (San Jose State), RB Jacory Croskey-Merritt (New Mexico), QB Adam Damante (Northern Arizona), DL Kevon Darton (Syracuse), OL Alexander Doost (Northwestern), DB Demetrius Freeney (Miami), QB Anthony Garcia (San Jose State), DB Owen Goss (Colgate), DB Marquis Groves-Killebrew (Louisville), DL Lance Keneley (Stanford), EDGE Chase Kennedy (Utah), DB Jack Luttrell (Tennessee), DL Chubba Ma’ae (UC Davis), OL Shancco Matautia (Arizona State), WR Reymello Murphy (Old Dominion), TE Sam Olson (San Jose State), RB Kedrick Reescano (Ole Miss), OL Jonah Rodriguez (San Diego State), DB Jordan Shaw (Indiana), EDGE Tre Smith (San Jose State), OL Ryan Stewart (San Jose State), DL Stanley Ta’ufo’ou (USC), OL Michael Wooten (Oregon)
Transfer Portal Losses: LB Ammon Allen (Northern Arizona), OL Joe Borjon (San Diego State), RB Jonah Coleman (Washington), EDGE Russell Davis II (Washington), QB Jayden de Laura, WR Deric English, WR Kevin Green Jr. (Washington), WR Audric Harris (Washington), EDGE Jason Harris (Marshall), LS Kameron Hawkins (Colorado), LB Daniel Heimuli (Georgia State), DL Jacob Rich Kongaika (Arizona State), RB Adam Mohammed (Washington), DB Kanyon Moses (Northern Arizona), DL Bill Norton (Texas), OL Anthony Patt (Old Dominion), EDGE Orin Patu (Bethune-Cookman), DB Ephesians Prysock (Washington), RB Stevie Rocker Jr. (Montana), DB Cruz Rushing (Oregon), DL Tiaoalii Savea (Texas), DB Isaiah Taylor (Miami), DL Isaiah Ward (Washington), DB DJ Warnell (Indiana), RB Jordan Washington (Washington), OL Michael Watkins (Washington), QB Demond Williams Jr. (Washington), DB Charles Yates Jr. (Old Dominion)
While the narrative surrounding the Wildcats’ offseason has, justifiably, focused on the players who stayed, it bears mentioning that they suffered a handful of key departures as well.
Ephesians Prysock partnered with Davis to give Arizona one of the best cornerback tandems in college football last year, but he chose to head to Washington, as did leading rusher Jonah Coleman (871 yards, five TDs) and pass rusher Isaiah Ward (four sacks), among others. The defensive line was gutted between the portal and the draft, with interior linemen Bill Norton and Tiaoalii Savea following former coordinator Johnny Nansen to Texas.
Brennan brought reinforcements along from San Jose State, filling a big hole on the edge with All-Mountain West defensive end Tre Smith (66 tackles, 9½ TFLs, 6½ sacks). Quali Conley rushed for 842 yards and nine touchdowns, and tight end Sam Olson set career highs with 310 receiving yards and three TDs.
Arizona added a 1,000-yard rusher from the MWC in New Mexico’s Jacory Croskey-Merritt, who scored 17 touchdowns and outgained Damien Martinez, Quinshon Judkins and Jonathon Brooks on the ground. Chubba Ma’ae, Kevon Darton and Jarra Anderson will each seek to make an impact in the middle of the Wildcat defense.
Could any freshmen make an impact for Arizona?
Top Incoming Freshmen: LB Stacy Bey (Fontana, Calif.), LB Jabari Mann (San Mateo, Calif.), EDGE Eduwa Okundaye (Katy, Texas), WR Brandon Phelps (Gilbert, Ariz.), TE Dylan Tapley (Scottsdale, Ariz.)
The effects of Fisch’s exit might most be felt on the recruiting front, at least in terms of the Wildcats’ 2024 haul.
Four signees hit the transfer portal and followed their coach to Washington, including Arizona’s top two consensus recruits — quarterback Demond Williams Jr. (Chandler, Ariz.) and running back Jordan Washington (Long Beach, Calif.). Williams will be groomed behind Mississippi State transfer Will Rogers as the Huskies’ QB of the future.
In-state tight end Dylan Tapley is the highest-rated player remaining in Arizona’s freshman class. He caught 41 passes for 604 yards and nine touchdowns for Scottsdale’s Desert Mountain.
Transfers lifted Arizona to 48th in 247Sports’ overall team recruiting rankings, but it finished 84th in terms of its high school signees (15th of the Big 12’s 16 programs).
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — The two Republicans running for Arizona attorney general faced each other Thursday in a debate that devolved into insults and name-calling.
State Senate President Warren Petersen is running against military attorney Rodney Glassman in the Republican primary. The debate turned chaotic as the candidates clashed.
“Are you asking the questions, Steve?” Petersen said.
The moderator attempted to regain control. “Gentlemen, we’re going to reset,” he said.
Candidates clash over experience
The debate was the last before early voting begins next month. In between the name-calling, the two candidates argued over their resumes.
Glassman said Petersen does not have the legal experience for the job.
“Warren is just full of information, you can call them lies. He received his law license in December 2023, 28 months ago. He has never filed a lawsuit as a lawyer. He has never prosecuted a criminal as a lawyer,” Glassman said.
Petersen has had a law license for less than three years. He said he worked on cases in Scottsdale while earning his degree. Petersen said his experience as the current state Senate president also counts.
“I have done more in three years than Rodney Glassman will even get done in his life because he’s a trust fund baby who’s just looking for a place. He’s been running for 15 years and he’s lost six elections in a row,” Petersen said.
History of campaigns
Glassman has not won an elected office since he served as a Democrat on the Tucson City Council in 2007. Glassman is an Air Force attorney with 17 years of experience.
Democratic strategist Matt Grodsky said the real winner was the incumbent, Kris Mayes.
“I thought it was entertaining television. I’m glad Arizona got to see up close why these two individuals should be nowhere near the AG’s office,” Grodsky said.
Voting in the primary begins June 24.
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The Arizona man known as the “QAnon Shaman” said Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s new Anti-Weaponization Fund is an abuse of power by a would-be “king.”
Jacob Angeli-Chansley – the face of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot with his red, white and blue face paint and horned fur headdress – denounced the $1.776 billion program as a “slush fund” for Trump to reward his loyalists.
The Justice Department announced the fund on Monday as part of a settlement with Trump, who had sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns. The settlement included an assurance that the IRS will drop all audits and claims for back taxes against Trump, his family and businesses.
“You think I’m gonna take a f—ing dime from Trump and the government after he’s using this thing to cover him and his family in perpetuity for all of their crimes?” he told Cronkite News by phone. “You think I’m gonna take a dime of that blood money?”
Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who participated in the Jan. 6 riot the day he returned to the White House in January 2025. Many had been convicted of assaulting police officers.
Cronkite News reached out to 17 of those defendants with Arizona ties. None besides Angeli-Chansley responded.
Thirteen were convicted or pleaded guilty to crimes related to the attack. Four of the cases were dismissed after the pardon. The charges included assault on federal agents, physical violence at the Capitol and seditious conspiracy.
See our previous coverage of the Anti-Weaponization Fund and “QAnon Shaman” in the video player above.
Angeli-Chansley pleaded guilty to a charge of obstruction of an official proceeding. He served 27 months of a 41-month sentence. He was released from federal prison in March 2023.
During the riot, he carried an American flag fastened to a spear and used a bullhorn to call other rioters to the dais in the Senate chamber.
“He stated that ‘Mike Pence is a f—-ing traitor’ and wrote a note on available paper on the dais, stating, ‘It’s Only A Matter of Time. Justice Is Coming,’” according to prosecutors.
At a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the compensation fund, saying it will be open to anyone victimized by a politically motivated prosecution, not just Jan. 6 defendants.
“It’s not limited to Republicans. … It’s not limited to the Biden weaponization. It’s not limited to, in any way scope or form, January 6 or to (targets of special counsel) Jack Smith. There’s no limitation on the claims,” Blanche said.
He rejected Democrats’ assertions that the fund is a massive, taxpayer-funded attempt by Trump to whitewash the assault on democracy.
“I think it’s telling that everybody on the left and … the liberal side of the media immediately says it’s a slush fund for President Trump’s friends,” Blanche said. “If anything else, that’s an outright admission that they know that the people that really had this Department of Justice weaponized against them were President Trump and his friends. But … that is not what the AG order that I signed yesterday says.”
Blanche, who served as Trump’s private attorney in several cases – prosecutions over election interference and classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago and allegations of hush money paid to an adult actress ahead of the 2016 election – faced strong criticism from Senate Democrats.
“You are acting today like the president’s personal attorney and that’s the whole problem,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who also noted that a huge banner with Trump’s portrait was draped over the front of the Department of Justice building in February.
At a homeland security committee meeting Tuesday, Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego called for legislation barring establishment of a fund of the sort proposed by the Trump administration.
He called it outrageous to provide compensation to “traitors who attacked the Capitol.”
“No president, Republican or Democrat, should be able to use the federal treasury as a personal checkbook,” he said.
Angeli-Chansley now refers to himself as the “American Shaman.” He was heavily involved in the QAnon movement, which centered on a conspiracy theory that Trump was fighting a cabal of Satan worshippers who engage in child sex trafficking.
He was a strong MAGA supporter when the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, interrupting congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Angeli-Chansley has since become disenchanted with Trump. He has also repudiated the QAnon movement.
In a rambling phone conversation with Cronkite News, he repeatedly cited Trump’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting federal trial for trafficking young women and girls for sex.
He reiterated his anger with Trump for resisting the release of the Epstein files.
And he criticized Trump for attacking Iran and supporting Israel, among other things.
Angeli-Chansley sued Trump for $40 trillion in September 2025, asserting he is the true leader of the free world and vowing to use the sum to wipe out the national debt. The lawsuit was dismissed. He later filed a lawsuit against the CIA, FBI, World Bank and others in Maricopa County.
He urged fellow Jan. 6ers to “reject that … money.”
If courts allow the fund to operate, Angeli-Chansley said, it would mean that Trump “can do whatever it is that he wants.”
Teacher unions call for board member’s resignation after ‘Nazi salute’
Teacher unions call for District Boardmember Kimberly Fisher’s resignation after she made a “Nazi salute” during a public meeting on May 26, 2026.
Provided by Deer Valley Unified School District
School teacher unions are calling for the resignation of a Deer Valley Unified School District board member after she made a “Nazi salute” and said “heil’ at the end of a public meeting on May 26.
Boardmember Kimberly Fisher stretched out her arm, making the salute motion and repeating the word “heil” twice after the board president called for a vote to adjourn the meeting.
Fisher defended her actions in a Facebook video after the meeting, stating she made the gesture because she felt that the board had been under a “dictatorship” led by Board President Paul Carver and the district’s superintendent.
“All I could think of tonight was Hitler, so that’s why I said heil or whatever,” Fisher said in an eight-minute-long video.
Prior to the motion, Fisher and the board members were speaking on scheduling future meetings to discuss changes to district boundaries. Superintendent Curtis Finch stated they could not discuss the topic because it was on the meeting’s agenda. Then Carver quickly called for a vote to end the meeting, which prompted Fisher to make the salute.
The board members did not immediately react or acknowledge Fisher’s salute at the May 26 meeting.
This was not the first time Fisher has recently come under scrutiny. In October, she was slammed with a violation of Open Meeting Law by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, The Daily Independent reported.
Fisher could not be immediately reached for comment.
How the community is reacting to Fisher’s Nazi salute
The local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization focused on advocating against antisemitism and hate, denounced Fisher’s use of the salute.
“We unequivocally condemn this behavior that glorifies Nazis and Hitler. Regardless of intent, these actions instill fear in the community and are unbecoming of officials entrusted with educating children,” said Sarah Kader, the deputy regional director of ADL Desert, in a social media post.
The Arizona Education Association and the Deer Valley Education Association are calling for Fisher’s resignation.
“Kimberly Fisher should apologize to the DVUSD community and step down,” the state union group wrote on X.
The local teacher union wrote in a Facebook statement that they were “horrified and disgusted” to see Fisher’s actions.
“Any leader who uses a Nazi salute during a School Board meeting is unfit for public service. There is no justification for this behavior,” the union wrote.
Boardmember Stephanie Simacek, in a statement, said “this is what antisemitism looks like when people get comfortable” and called for an “immediate censure.”
“I am calling for accountability. And I am calling on every parent, educator, and elected official Republican or Democrat — to stand up and say clearly: THIS HAS NO PLACE HERE,” she wrote in the statement.
Simacek is also a house member in the Arizona State Legislature and is running for a state senate seat.
She wrote, “What happened in that room was not a joke.”
The school district “does not condone, support, or endorse gestures or language associated with hate, discrimination, intimidation, or violence in any form,” said Kayla Pologa, a spokesperson for Deer Valley, in a written statement.
“As an elected official, Mrs. Fisher speaks and acts independently,” Pologa wrote.
She said Fisher’s views don’t reflect nor should be attributed to other board members or members of the school district.
Who is Kimberly Fisher?
Fisher has been a Deer Valley School District parent for 24 years, according to her biography on the district’s website. She had two children graduate from the district and her third is being homeschooled in his final year, her biography states.
She had previously served on the board from 2015 to 2018.
In 2017, Fisher was the school board president and was criticized for a social media exchange with a teacher.
She was reelected in 2020. Fisher’s current term ends in 2028.
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