page_title: University of Arizona
section_title: Football
hierarchical_section_title: University of Arizona / Athletics / Teams / Football
caption_attribution_description: English: The east side of the stadium, with the ZonaZoo section closest to the field.
context_page_description: The University of Arizona is a public research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885, the UofA was the first university in the Arizona Territory. As of 2019, the university enrolled 45,918 students in 19 separate colleges/schools, including the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson and Phoenix and the James E. Rogers College of Law, and is affiliated with two academic medical centers. The University of Arizona is governed by the Arizona Board of Regents. The University of Arizona is one of the elected members of the Association of American Universities and is the only representative from the state of Arizona to this group.
  Known as the Arizona Wildcats, the UA's intercollegiate athletic teams are members of the Pac-12 Conference of the NCAA. UA athletes have won national titles in several sports, most notably men's basketball, baseball, and softball. The official colors of the university and its athletic teams are cardinal red and navy blue.
context_section_description: The football team began at The University of Arizona in 1899 under the nickname "Varsity" (a name kept until the 1914 season when the team was deemed the "Wildcats").
  The football team was notably successful in the 1990s, under head coach Dick Tomey; his "Desert Swarm" defense was characterized by tough, hard-nosed tactics. In 1993, the team had its first 10-win season and beat the University of Miami Hurricanes in the Fiesta Bowl by a score of 29–0. It was the bowl game's only shutout in its then 23-year history. In 1998, the team posted a school-record 12–1 season and made the Holiday Bowl in which it defeated the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Arizona ended the season ranked 4th nationally in the coaches and API poll. The 1998 Holiday Bowl was televised on ESPN and set the now-surpassed record of being the most watched of any bowl game in the network's history. From November 2003 until October 2011, the program was led by Mike Stoops, brother of Bob Stoops, the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma (the 2000 BCS national champions); Stoops was fired on October 10, 2011. Former Michigan and West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez was hired on November 21, 2011 to lead the Wildcats. The announcement was made by UA athletic director Greg Byrne via Twitter. In his first season, Rodriguez took the Wildcats to the 2012 New Mexico Bowl, where they defeated the University of Nevada Wolf Pack. In his third season, the Wildcats won the Pac-12 South and played in the 2014 Fiesta Bowl. In 2015, the Wildcats played in their fourth consecutive bowl game, defeating the University of New Mexico in the New Mexico Bowl. In 2017, they lost to the Purdue Boilermakers in the Foster Farms Bowl, the Wildcats 21st bowl game.
  Dave Heeke was named Arizona's 13th Director of Athletics in February 2017 and officially started in that role on April 1, 2017. Heeke served as Athletics Director at Central Michigan University for 11 years and as a staff member in the University of Oregon athletics department for 18 years. (Greg Byrne resigned the post in January to accept the same role at the University of Alabama.)
  Rodriguez was relieved of his duties on January 2, 2018, in the wake of an internal university investigation of sexual harassment claims made by Rodriguez' former administrative assistant. After a nationwide search and much media speculation, Kevin Sumlin was hired on January 14, 2018 as the new Wildcats head football coach. Sumlin was head coach at Texas A&M University and the University of Houston.
caption: Arizona Stadium has a total capacity of 55,675
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