FRISCO, Texas — Arizona isn’t taking any chances. It wants you to know that its quarterback, Noah Fifita, is one of the best in the country.
It’s not every player at Big 12 Media Days that gets a one-sheet of his accomplishments. But the Wildcats’ PR department had one for everyone in the media. At the top the message was clear:
Noah Fifita for Heisman. It’s a campaign. But that’s not his goal, as he told reporters at The Star in Frisco on Wednesday.
“It’s not about a Heisman campaign. It’s about a Big 12 Championship … We have the people to go do it,” Fifita said.
Noah Fifita’s Biggest Season Yet?
Fifita is a rarity in this era of college football — a player who has spent his entire career with one school. Arizona touted that on the one-sheet. He’s one of five senior quarterbacks in FBS that has been with one school. But he still must perform to survive a coaching change and be happy with where he’s at, so he’s not tempted by the transfer portal.
The production is there. He’s thrown for 9.183 yards in his career and is coming off a 2025 in which he threw for a career-high 3,228 yards. His 29 touchdown passes broke the program’s single-season record. His 73 touchdowns passes are more than any other active player in the country.
Perhaps this showcases just what Fifita means to Arizona. Along with being named preseason All-Big 12 earlier this week, he was the first-team quarterback for the Big 12 last season as the Wildcats finished 9-4 and 6-3 in the Big 12. Fifita became the first Arizona quarterback to be named first-team all-conference in 50 years.
He admitted he flirted with the NFL last offseason. Coming off a season like that he would have been selected, perhaps not in the first round. But the new “five-for-five” eligibility rule means this will be his final season. The rule wasn’t passed when he decided to come back. Fifita said he felt the tug of one more run and doing something the Wildcats hadn’t done before.
“The reason I came back was to do something that has never been done in Arizona history and that’s go win a Big 12 Championship,” he said.
The Wildcats last won a conference title in football in 1993 in the Pac-12.
It’s not hard to buy into the hype. Fifita’s numbers and winning personality make it easy. But he spoke like someone who hadn’t read the one-sheet before his time with the media.
“I’m extremely grateful for it but I think my whole life preseason rankings never mattered,” Fifita said. “Last year we were rated to be the worst and that motivated us to do what we did. You can’t let that affect you, positive or negative.”
