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Nov 30, 2024; Tucson, Arizona, USA; Arizona Wildcats wide receiver Jeremiah Patterson (2) against the Arizona State Sun Devils during the Territorial Cup at Arizona Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Bold Observations From Arizona Training Camp

Originally posted on Arizona Wildcats on SI
By Troy Hutchison | Last updated Aug 13, 2025 9:00 AM ET

Arizona football is officially BACK in action and the long offseason is finally coming to an end as the Wildcats have opened up their 2025 training camp to get things geared up for the season with the team set to face Hawaii on Aug. 30 at home at 7:30 p.m. (MST) on TNT.

After an underwhelming 2024 season under Brent Brennan where Arizona went 4-8 after starting the year in the preseason AP Poll at No. 21 and ending the year losing 7 out of its last 8 games, the Wildcats made changes to the roster and their coaching staff.

Brennan revamped his coaching staff by hiring Seth Doege as the offensive coordinator and promoting Danny Gonzales to the defensive coordinating job. Plus, he was able to bring in defensive line coach Joe Salave’a, who is regarded as one of the top recruiters in the nation and a former Wildcat as well.

“When we go through a tough season like we did a year ago, you got to find a way to fix what was broken, fix what wasn’t working and put those pieces together,” Brennan said. “And part of those pieces are how we’re going to do things in terms of how we’re going to coach, what we’re going to do schematically and the other part is who are the players that are going to play those roles.”

The energy at practice was high, loud and the pace of play was a complete 180 from the previous season and matches the mindset and mentality that the coaching staff wasn’t to bring to the 2025 season.

Three Observations

James Snook-Imagn Images

RPO

In today’s college football, the vast majority of the country runs some form of a run-pass option style of offense in the offensive scheme. Arizona during the Rich Rodriguez era ran some form of the run-pass, which led to five bowl games and one 10-win season.

Now, Doege’s offensive scheme is different from Rodriguez and is more of an air-raid style with an uptempo flair to it. However, there are some elements for RPOs and just the other day, we saw Fifita and Locke running a ton of RPOs throughout practice and during 11-on-11 drills.

Jeremiah Patterson

Last season, wide receiver Jeremiah Patterson had a strong training camp and was clearly the second best receiver on the roster. However, it didn’t translate to the season where he struggled to get open and was primarily used in the punt return game.

This training camp, Arizona has added depth in the receiver meaning Patterson has been lowered on the depth chart at the position. However, he has been a monster in the return game and has been working with the first-team unit in the punting game.

Now, with his speed and route running ability, Patterson might be a bigger part of the offense with Doege, who understands how to use speed in space unlike the previous offensive coordinator.

Ka’ena Decambra

After transferring to Arizona as a guard, offensive lineman Ka’ena Decambra saw plenty of time snapping the ball as part of the first and second team offense working with Fifita and Locke. During that time, Decambra struggled at snapping with balls spread out like a shotgun blast not knowing where it was going to end up.

However, after working with former Wildcat Josh Baker and offensive line coach Josh Oglesby the snapping problems have been a thing of the past for Decambra, who hasn’t had one bad snap so far through 2-plus weeks of training camp.