what does be down brotherhood mean to you be down Brotherhood um it's a sign of connection how close we are all the players preach it they feel it everybody loves each other and cares about each other bear down Brotherhood means to me I mean what happened in January was probably a good uh example 17 unanswered points in the fourth and Arizona has won the AL we coming off a good feeling you know seven game win streak so everybody's hyped up and pumped up the Arizona wild cats finish out the 2023 season with 10 wins as a team you know you feel feel accomplished you know capping off a year like no I was ready to kick off [Music] 2024 and that's when I started get text you know from the guys and everything like that a stunning turn of events this weekend within the UFA football program that leaves the Arizona wild cats searching for answers less than a week after finishing with their highest final ranking in 25 years many players could end up transferring out of Arizona as well we were in the car and then all of a sudden just scroll through social media and then we were just talking about asking each other hey like is this true is is coach leaving I mean everybody was shocked um like the whole G TR was going crazy like damn what are we going to do a lot of side conversations a lot of different text message chats you know just like hey what are you doing what are you doing it was like a weird 2 three days who called the first team meeting Nal did he caught it it was his idea that's crazy we we probably I mean I don't know who sent the text but yeah he it was his idea I feel like if we were able to just sit down as a collective just to calm everybody's nerves down just get everybody emotions see how they're feeling and make it a comfortable place for them to express themselves um I feel like that was a uh a big thing that we should do at that moment and I just kind of told everybody you know this but we built this program we we turned this program we want to continue what we build and we were talking about like just writing it out just doing this together and finishing our four years together Arizona footballs new man in charge has touchdown to welcome back to Tucson for Brent Brennan as we get to know each other as we build this thing I will earn your trust over time let's just build something special he came in here and like immediately met with uh you know some of us on the team you know after meeting with the players for a couple days and just sitting in my office and letting them just pepper me with questions they asked me a million questions and we had two different sessions each one lasted about 2 hours and about 25 players in there each day um it was after the second session that that Noah and T-Mac like closed the door and told me that they want wanted to stay when things happened we already knew for a jump that we were going to stay together regardless he was the first person to say that he wanted to stay um there was no there was no hesitation there's no Flinch in his answer um throughout the entire week right after the meeting we ended up going to Rubio and eating and just kind of talking but from that point on um I was pretty adamant that I was going to stay and I was just trying to find a reason um a sign that that was the right decision just didn't feel right to me just to just to leave what we already had bus over here and it just kind of became a movement a bunch of other players talked to me the same right so that was stukes Gunner Dalton big Jonah and Jacob Manu um so all those things started to kind of domino and uh I could feel the excitement I knew I was excited Tucson we got unfinished business we running it back bear down it just felt like an elephant stepped off your chest you know like it just felt good cuz down we all wanted to stay they kind of really all aligned perfectly for us like keina come back for the defensive guys coach Brandon being amazing um and like we all we all want to finish in Arizona wild great to see everybody getting going today here we go eyes up eyes up great start I love this team is good people let's go get in here on three on Me 1 2 3 they made a really unpopular Choice like and the choice they made was they chose each other really kind of a big picture you know family decision which makes it to me all the more special 2 that's why we're trying to make sure that everybody understands this really was a team decision um we wouldn't be here if the team wasn't here more than 70 guys staying I think that many guys stayed because they knew they were part of a family 1 2 this year yeah we're continuing that Bond uh that chemistry we have from last year then obviously we got new guys coming in you know trying to bring them along everything we do is as a team you know it's never just one person so when you're a part of Arizona football and you're in the be down Brotherhood um you know you're never alone the Brotherhood is true the be down Brotherhood is real and yall are going to see that fr [Applause] [Music]