1980 Arizona Wildcats football team

Arizona finished the 1979 season with a 6–5 record, and lost to Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl. During the offseason, head coach Tony Mason was discovered as being allegedly involved in a cash payment scandal by giving boosters money to players, which was illegal under NCAA rules. As a result, Mason resigned as coach and was replaced by Smith, who was coaching at Tulane.[6][7] Smith was a former assistant coach at Arizona under Mason's predecessor Jim Young. In a press conference, Smith promised to rebuild the program and bring the team to a winning success.[8]

• Smith's first season was known as a rebuilding year to fans. An extremely difficult schedule also affected Arizona's chances at a bowl game, and led to the team's mediocre record.
• The season was the only one in the 1980s that Arizona finished with a losing record and one of only two seasons in the decade that they had a non-winning record (the other was in 1987 when they went 4–4–3).
• Also, this season started a decade of resurgence for the Wildcats, fulfilling Smith's promise when he was hired before the season started (see above).
• Arizona did not play Texas Tech for the first time since 1970.
• From mid-October through early November, the Wildcats played four consecutive home games.
• The victory over UCLA was the first big win under Smith, which became overshadowed by Arizona's upset of USC (UCLA's chief rival) during the following season.
• This season was the only one in Smith lost to ASU at home. Arizona did not lose to their rival at home again until 1992.
• The game against Arizona State had the earliest start time in Arizona Stadium history. The 10:00 a.m. kickoff was due to the fact that the game was televised regionally and that there were scheduling conflicts within the broadcasting window, meaning that there wasn't an open afternoon/evening time slot available for the game to kick off.[26]
• This was the last season until 2012 that Arizona wore red helmets and also the last season until 2005 that they wore red jerseys for home games. The red helmets had been worn since the 1977 season and were previously used from 1967 to 1972 and the red jerseys had been their primary home jerseys since 1977. Arizona officials believed that the team wearing red was too confusing with Pac-10 schools USC, Stanford, Arizona State, and Washington State, whose colors are a variation and/or a darker shade of red (Arizona and conference foe California have blue as one of their colors, though Arizona's blue is slightly lighter than California's, who has a darker shade of blue). Beginning in 1981, the Wildcats returned to wearing blue jerseys at home and white helmets for the first time since 1976. Prior to 1977, Arizona had worn the blue jerseys. The helmets would feature a red “A” on them and it was worn by players until the end of the 1989 season.[27][28]
• This was the first of only two seasons in the 1980s that Arizona did not have an overall winning record with the other occurring in 1987 (in which was the first season after Smith left Arizona and finished with a non-losing 4–4–3 record), and the only one in the decade in which the Wildcats compiled an actual losing record (5–6).

Although the Wildcats finished the 1980 season with a losing record, they would begin improving under Smith and started to compete with the other conference teams, as Arizona completed their third season as a Pac-10 member, and would build a winning culture for both the university and the Tucson community that lasted through most of the 1980s and the team would become known for their upset victories under Smith's watch.[29] Even though they would later be punished for their part in the scandal prior to Smith's hiring, Arizona would bring in recruits to bring success to start a period of dominance that would surprise fans across Arizona and credit Smith for making the Wildcats a relevant team again, like what Young did during the mid-1970s.[30]