THE Arizona Wildcats and first-year head coach continue to navigate their way through their first season as a member of the Big 12 after spending more than five decades in the PAC-12.

With their latest defeat against West Virginia Mountaineersthe Wildcats fell to 3-5 overall this year with a 1-4 record in conference play.

It’s been a struggle in all aspects of the game for Arizona, and there are still four games left, with the team still having an outside chance of becoming bowl eligible if they go 3-1 down the stretch.

It’s not impossible, as the Wildcats started the 2024 campaign with a 3-1 streak, although one of those wins came against the New Mexico Lobosa team that has struggled to find success in the Mountain West, and the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks, a Division 2 team that held Arizona to just 22 points.

The Wildcats’ recent string of losses has seen their stocks continue to fall, as Chris Vannini of Athletics has now dropped the program to 66th in its latest college football power rankings after ranking the team at 55th last week.

Many teams passed Arizona in the rankings this week, including the Mountaineers who won Saturday’s game 31-26 to move to 4-4 on the year and 3-2 in conference play.

However, the game was never as close as the score might suggest, as West Virginia held a 17-7 lead before halftime and a 24-13 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

As hard as I’ve been on Noah Fifita over the weeks, he was a bright spot for the team in this game, throwing for 294 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions on 21 of 32 passing.

Tetairoa McMillan played a much bigger role in the offensive attack this week, something that needs to continue moving forward, as he was targeted 14 times and totaled 10 catches for 202 yards and a touchdown.

The wide receiver is just 18 yards shy of the 1,000 mark for the 2024 campaign, on just 57 catches for an average of 17.2 yards per catch.

The junior continues to stand out on this team, and the Wildcats would do well to continue to integrate him into the offensive game plan early and often, as they did on Saturday.

The season is winding down, but with four games remaining on the schedule, bowl eligibility is still a possibility for this program.