1996 Arizona Wildcats football team

After completing the 1995 season, the Wildcats had to rebuild the team by finding recruits. Duane Akina, the team’s offensive coordinator since 1992, stepped down from his position and would become the defensive backs coach. Tomey brought in Alabama offensive coordinator Homer Smith to take over at the same position to fix Arizona’s offense that had been mediocre under Akina.[9] They also had to get a new quarterback and replacing most of the “Desert Swarm” defensive players, which included Tedy Bruschi, the leader of the unit, who graduated.[10]

By the preseason, Arizona, even though with a new offensive coordinator, was picked to finish in the bottom half of the Pac-10 standings.[11]

• Chris McAlister, CB, First-team All-Pac-10, Consensus All-American

• Arizona and the Desert Swarm struggled sporadically throughout the season due to them rebuilding without Bruschi, through they seemed to improve late in the year before losing big to Arizona State in the finale.
• Arizona Stadium featured new changes, as the midfield logo that commemorated Arizona’s 100th anniversary of its athletic teams, though it read “1897–1997” due to it being founded in the spring of 1897, which was technically during the 1896–97 school year. As a result, the logo was used during this season instead of the next (1997). In addition, the north end zone read “Bear Down” (Arizona’s motto) and the south read “Arizona” (due to “Bear Down, Arizona” being the Wildcats’ de facto fight song).[24]
• The Wildcats alternated wins and losses in most of the first half of the season. In the second half, they would lose more due to inexperience at the quarterback position and costly turnovers. Three of the six losses were by close margins and that the mistakes in them may have cost Arizona a chance at a bowl game.
• Two of the Wildcats’ non-conference opponents were from the Big Ten Conference, Iowa and Illinois. Arizona would lose to the former and win against the latter.
• After shutting out Illinois, the Wildcats would not shut out an opponent again until 2008.
• Even though Arizona lost its first overtime game at California, the two teams would play another overtime contest the following season, in which the Wildcats would win. Due to concerns that overtime games could take too long and possibly last forever, the NCAA made changes to overtime rules in 1997 that saw two-point conversion attempts after touchdowns from the third overtime onward.
• Following its victory over UCLA, the Wildcats did not beat the Bruins at home again until 2005.
• The game against Arizona State was the Wildcats’ toughest test of the season and by losing to them, it prevented Arizona from having a perfect home record, as they won all of their other games before then.
• The record crowd for the rivalry game against Arizona State was a result of more fans attending due to the fact that ASU was ranked in the top five and being in the hunt for the national championship.[25] In addition, over half of the Arizona Stadium crowd at the game were mostly from the Phoenix area that drove to Tucson for the anticipated rivalry matchup and that the Wildcat fans who attended didn’t expect Arizona to have a chance at a big upset due to ASU being extremely difficult to beat.[26][27] The attendance record still stands as of today, and that it is highly unlikely it will ever be broken in the near future.[28]

The Wildcats had to once again rebuild the program after concluding the season. Defensive coordinator Larry Mac Duff, who had been with Arizona since Tomey’s hiring in 1987 and one of the masterminds of the Desert Swarm, would leave Arizona to become the special teams coach for the NFL’s New York Giants.[29] Arizona had to replace him with a new coach to re-energize the defense and only the last few members of the Swarm remained on the team.

The 1996 football season would become forgotten by the spring of 1997, as Arizona’s basketball team reached the Final Four and won the national championship, though the football program continued to rebuild and recruit during the span.[30]

The Wildcats’ rebuilding offense would later improve and become dominant for the rest of the decade, and become a force in the Pac-10 as well as in the nation.[31]