No. 21 Arizona football lived up to its first Associated Press preseason Top 25 ranking in a decade on Saturday night with a 61-39 blasting of New Mexico, highlighted by junior wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, a preseason All-American and likely top-10 2025 NFL Draft pick, going off for a school-record 304 yards receiving and four touchdowns. The tandem of T-Mac and quarterback Noah Fifita is going to light up Big 12 defenses this season, even if the coach who recruited them, Jedd Fisch, is at Arizona now.
McMillan averaged 30.4 yards on 10 catches and broke the Arizona single-game record of 283 yards receiving set by Jeremy McDaniel in 1996. McMillan matched Jacob Cowing's touchdown catches record set against Southern California last season and fell 10 yards short of the Big 12 record set by Baylor's Terrance Williams in 2012.
McMillan has a good chance in 2024 to finish as Arizona's top career receiver in a handful of categories, and then he'll go off to the NFL. Last season he hauled in 90 receptions, 1,402 yards and 10 touchdowns as Arizona went 10-3.
There are many ways to explain a program's rise under Fisch -- and we're sure they are lessons new coach Brent Brennan will lean on to keep the momentum going and build on it. But for Arizona, it's easy to pinpoint the origin in fortune: Orange County, California, home of the youth football powerhouse OC Buckeyes (their name recently changed to the Juice County Buckeyes).
That's where Preseason All-Big 12 First Team linebacker Jacob Manu, Arizona starting tight end Keyan Burnett and, yes, McMillan and Fifita first joined forces.
They did so again at Anaheim (Calif.) Servite, transforming the Golden State school from a Trinity League afterthought to statewide contender.
Then they all came together in Tucson as part of the 2022 class. They arrived at a program that had just gone 1-11. Two years later, they won 10 games for only the fourth time in program history.
Then came a chance to relocate. Arizona coach Jedd Fisch departed for Washington and unexpectedly opened a second transfer window for the Wildcats -- some of which, like Fifita and McMillan, could have gone almost anywhere in the country.
This led to questions about what would be the best fit for their futures, including the option to follow Fisch to Seattle. Fifita's dad Les, who founded the OC Buckeyes, remembers being on the phone with his son and McMillan two days after Fisch departed.
Noah told his dad: "Is it crazy we're going to stay?"
"I was like, 'Nah,' Les Fifita told 247Sports in March. "That's who you guys are."
Four childhood friends, one package deal in college -- right? It wasn't quite that simple.
"Ideally, yes," said 247Sports national scouting analyst Greg Biggins. "But that's not quite how it worked out."
Four different players. Four different recruiting tiers.
- McMillan ranked as the No. 37 overall player in the 2022 class, a true national recruit who could have played anywhere in the country.
- Burnett ranked the No. 232 overall player and No. 6 tight end. He had offers from everywhere.
- Fifita, despite gaudy production, battled size concerns while listed at 5-foot-10, 170 pounds. He had a Cal offer, but the Golden Bears opted for someone else. Fifita didn't have any other Power Four looks until Fisch got the Wildcats job following the 2020 season.
- Manu? He had only a single FBS offer. Les pushed Manu on schools like San Diego State and UNLV. They passed.
Burnett committed first, pledging to USC March 5, 2021.
Fifita chose Arizona a month later.
McMillan committed to Oregon later that summer.
Manu didn't even have a FBS offer, entering his senior year.
Those four different recruiting realities had zero impact on Fifita. Once he committed to Arizona in April, the mission shifted to: "OK, let's go get everyone else," Les Fifita said.
It didn't prove difficult to flip Burnett, whose dad famously played at Arizona as part of the program's celebrated Desert Swarm defense of the 1990s. Once Noah Fifita came on board, the die was cast.
Manu proved a more difficult sell to Arizona, at least at first. Fifita asked the Wildcats staff to just look at him.
"Just come watch a game," Les Fifita said. "Check him out. I feel like he does things on defense that Noah does on offense."
The Wildcats did come by. They offered Manu that same night. He committed seven days later. Even with all that OC Buckeyes momentum, McMillan felt like a pipe dream for both Arizona and the Fifita family.
"I didn't think he'd come," Fifita said. "Oregon was his dream school."
Then Miami came calling for Mario Cristobal. He left Oregon Dec. 6, 2021. McMillan found out on ESPN just a week-and-a-half ahead of the early signing period.
McMillan considered staying with the Ducks. Schools like USC and Clemson pushed hard. But Arizona had always been lurking in the background of the recruitment.
When Arizona came for Fifita's in-home visit, Manu and McMillian were hanging out at Fifita's house. Arizona never stopped communicating with McMillan. Nobody recruited him harder than his QB1, too.
McMillan flipped and Arizona signed the top-ranked recruit in program history, largely thanks to a 5-foot-10 (or so) QB that almost willed his way to his friends joining him in Tucson.
"He was the ringleader, for sure," Biggins said. "In 'Game of Thrones,' when it's trial by combat and I need a quarterback with my life on the line, I'm going with Noah. He's the guy I want. By our standards, I mean rankings, he's not rated as high. But if you're ranking a guy on who's the best quarterback, he's the guy."
MORE: How Arizona kept McMillan and Fifita in Tucson after Jedd Fisch's departure