Noah Fifita bucked the transfer portal trend to become one of Arizona's greatest quarterbacks

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — The transfer portal era might also be called the lack of loyalty age with players changing schools like they're switching subway trains.

Noah Fifita is the exception to an era.

Loyalties trump royalties for the player who will go down as one of the greatest quarterbacks in Arizona history.

“They've been loyal to me, they've trusted me, so I've been loyal to them,” Fifita said. “You want to prove them right and to the players in the locker room.”

Fifita has been proving himself since arriving in Tucson as a three-star recruit out of Southern California.

Undersized at 5-foot-10, 190 pounds, Fifita played so well he kept the starting job when Jayden de Laura returned from an ankle injury in 2023 and has been the starter ever since.

Fifita has gotten better with each season, becoming the first Arizona quarterback to earn first-team all-conference honors since 1975 after throwing for 3,228 yards and a school-record 29 touchdowns last season.

As he enters the final season of his Arizona career Saturday against Northern Arizona, Fifita is already the program's all-time leader in touchdown passes with 73 and is the only quarterback in school history to lead the team to two nine-win seasons. He's also third in career passing yards at 9,183 — 28 behind second and within reach of Nick Foles' record of 10,011.

Past success and big expectations for this season led Arizona to tout Fifita as a Heisman Trophy contender. The school handed out flyers touting his resume at Big 12 media days, created a Fifita for Heisman website and put up billboards in Tucson and Phoenix.

“Noah Fifita is the best story in college football,” Arizona coach Brent Brennan said. “He’s an incredibly good football player, but he’s also this rare human being that chooses the right things every day.”

Fifita’s size makes him a questionable NFL prospect — he’s projected to go in the late rounds or possibly not drafted at all — so it would have been easy for him to cash in on potentially millions in NIL money when he had the chance. And he's had several.

Few would have blamed him for transferring when coach Jedd Fisch left the program for Washington. Or when the Wildcats won four games in Brennan's first season.

Yet Fifita chose to remain in the desert. Loyalty meant more to him than money.

Fifita has a strong connection to the Tucson community, often feeding the homeless or coaching kids' flag football without fanfare. He owns a home in Tucson that's become a crash pad of sorts for Arizona players and recently got engaged to his girlfriend.

Fifita's brother, Dash, is a freshman linebacker at Arizona, giving the siblings a chance to play on the same team for the first time in their lives. Noah also will be playing under the same offensive coordinator for the first time in his career after thriving in Seth Doege's system a year ago.

Fifita's loyalty makes him just one of five senior quarterbacks in the Football Bowl Subdivision to play their entire careers at the same school.

“Sometimes I've got to pinch myself with Noah because I don't know if I'll get to coach a kid like him ever again,” Doege said. “He's truly like family to me and we have an understanding — there's a lot of trust when we step on that field.”

Fifita enters his final season with goals of playing for a Big 12 Championship, a spot in the Rose Bowl and a trip to New York for the Heisman Trophy presentation.

Because of his success and loyalty, he's already cemented his place among the best quarterbacks in Arizona history.

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