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Ex-Arizona quarterback Jayden de Laura and the Vegas Knight Hawks edged the San Diego Strike Force 74-68 on Friday.

De Laura completed 15 of 24 passes for 243 yards and seven touchdowns in the win over San Diego.

The Knight Hawks (12-6) will face the Green Bay Blizzard (12-6) for the IFL championship on Aug. 23 at Tucson Arena, which is entering a three-year contract as the host of the event.

Former Tucson Sugar Skulls head coach Hurtis Chinn is also returning to the Old Pueblo as the Knight Hawks’ offensive coordinator.

In his first season in the IFL, de Laura has passed for 1,662 yards, 34 touchdowns and three interceptions. De Laura led the Knight Hawks to a 59-55 win over the Sugar Skulls in Tucson in June.

As a college quarterback, after earning Pac-12 Offensive Freshman of the Year honors at Washington State in 2021, the Honolulu native transferred to Arizona and quarterbacked the Wildcats for two seasons under former UA head coach Jedd Fisch.

De Laura started all 12 games for Arizona in 2022 and passed for 3,685 yards, the third-most in team history, and 25 touchdowns; he also threw a Pac-12-worst 13 interceptions.

One of de Laura’s top performances was in Arizona’s upset win over 12th-ranked UCLA in the Rose Bowl, where he completed 22 of 28 passes for 315 yards and two touchdowns. He also passed for 484 yards, six touchdowns and no interceptions against Colorado in 2022.

De Laura’s backyard-style, gunslinger skillset was also prone to committing turnovers. He threw four interceptions against his former Washington State, the same game that also had de Laura getting into a skirmish with former Arizona wide receiver Dorian Singer. De Laura threw a combined seven interceptions in two games against Mississippi State in 2022 and ‘23.

De Laura started the first four games of the 2023 season, but was replaced by current starter Noah Fifita, after de Laura suffered an ankle injury entering the fourth quarter of Arizona’s come-from-behind win at Stanford.

Fifita went 7-2 as Arizona’s starter and led Arizona to a win over Oklahoma at the Alamo Bowl; the two losses were a one-possession defeat against Washington and a triple-overtime setback at USC. Fifita’s 2,869 yards, 25 touchdowns and six touchdowns on a 72.4% completion rate earned him Pac-12 Offensive Freshman of the Year and Pac-12 Freshman of the Week honors five times — a conference record. De Laura transferred to Texas State in the offseason.

In May 2023, de Laura and former high school teammate Kamo’i Latu, who’s now a redshirt senior defensive back at UConn, were involved in a civil lawsuit stemming from a second-degree sexual assault case in 2018, when de Laura and Latu were students at Saint Louis School in Honolulu. The civil lawsuit was officially settled in January 2024. Just over a week after the case was settled, de Laura withdrew his name from Texas State and turned professional instead of exercising his last year of eligibility.

De Laura signed with the San Antonio Brahmas of the XFL and is now playing for Las Vegas’ IFL team. Vegas also has former UA signee Adam Plant Jr., a 6-6, 270-pound defensive lineman, who ended up playing collegiately at TCU and UNLV.

The IFL championship game between Vegas and Green Bay at Tucson Arena is at 7:30 p.m.