The scale of Iowa State's roster turnover is hard to overstate. Former coach Matt Campbell took 23 players with him to Penn State, including starting QB Rocco Becht, and the Cyclones ended up with 103 outgoing transfers against just 50 incoming. Rogers won an FCS national title at South Dakota State and talks a good game about toughness, but he's rebuilding the receiving corps, the offensive staff and the quarterback room all at once.
Arizona has no such excuse. The Wildcats won 9 games in 2025, Brent Brennan's second year, capped by a Holiday Bowl trip against SMU, and they return key pieces on both sides of the ball. Preseason Big 12 polls have Arizona in the top 3 of the conference, which tells you how differently these two programs are trending heading into a brutal, contender-heavy Big 12 slate for the Wildcats.
Iowa State does have one thing going for it that shouldn't be dismissed: Raynor isn't a nobody. He threw for 3,361 yards with 19 touchdowns last season at Arkansas State, and running back Aiden Flora is a legitimate returning piece for a Cyclones offense that otherwise looks unfamiliar. The receiving room around him is basically brand new, though, and asking a transfer QB to sync up with a rebuilt staff and rebuilt weapons in year one is a tall order against a team like Arizona.
The bigger picture here is program trajectory. Arizona spent years scraping for relevance before Brennan's turnaround, and this Big 12 window is exactly the kind of season that either confirms 2025 was real or exposes it as a one-off. Iowa State, on the other hand, is in the business of just getting through year one of a new era intact. That imbalance is the entire preview.