Jedd Fisch has Arizona positioned well to make its first bowl game since 2017.

The Wildcats are 4-3 coming out of their bye week. Games remain against Oregon State, UCLA, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona State, but after narrowly missing upset wins against Washington and USC before blasting Washington State, there’s confidence the UA can find two more wins.

Perhaps most importantly, the team believes it can.

“One of the things we talked about (with) that recruiting class of ‘22 was focus on high school programs that have won a lot of games to try to bring a lot of people into the locker room that know what winning feels like,” Fisch said this week. “And then, with the portal this past year, go and try to find players from winning programs — whether that be Justin Flowe from Oregon, whether that be Bill Norton from Georgia.

“There’s something about knowing how to win.”

The 2022 signing class looks like a real program-changing group right now. Noah Fifita, Tetairoa McMillan, Jonah Coleman, Speedy Luke, Jonah Savaiinaea, and Wendell Moe are all filling substantial roles on offense. On defense, Jacob Manu and Ephesians Prysock have emerged as leaders.

That kind of success rate in a class will do wonders for a rebuild, regardless of what kinds of programs they came from.

In most cases, though, Arizona’s youngsters have come from situations where winning was expected.

“All of our freshmen and sophomores, all they know is winning, so it was hard for them to even adjust to the struggles early on,” Fisch said. “So now they’re feeling that they’re very confident every time we go out there and very disappointed when the outcome doesn’t go our way.”