Arizona football in top 25 of preseason ESPN FPI rankings

ESPN has put out its 2024 College Football Power Index and as expected, Arizona is near the top of the sport. Though maybe not as high as some would like.

Arizona ranks No. 24 in the FPI, the third-highest among Big 12 teams behind Kansas (17) and Kansas State (22). The modeling system gives Arizona an 11.5% chance of winning the Big 12 but a 16% chance of making the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff.

FPI’s models project Arizona to go 7.9-4.3 in coach Brent Brennan’s first season, which is about two fewer wins than the Wildcats had in 2023 when they went 10-3.

FPI is a “a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team’s performance going forward for the rest of the season.” FPI represents how many points above or below average a team is. The model projects results based on 20,000 simulations of the rest of the season.

A year ago the same model projected Arizona to go 5.5-6.5.

In an article accompanying the release of FPI, ESPN asked its college football writers which program is most undervalued in the ratings. ESPN’s Paolo Ugetti answered Arizona, giving this explanation: “Yes, I know the Wildcats have a brand new coach in Brent Brennan after losing Jedd Fisch to Washington, but they return quarterback Noah Fifita and wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan — a tandem that could upend the Big 12 in their debut year. Fifita has some sleeper Heisman potential, while McMillan is part of a pretty loaded wide receiver room. If Brennan can get the Wildcats’ defense to not be somnambulant this season, there’s a great chance their offense is good enough to carry them into being better than the 24th-best team in the nation.”

Most preseason polls have Arizona ranked somewhere in the top 20. Sporting News this week compiled a list of those polls, and Arizona is ranked No. 17 in the composite rankings.