Nobody knows how it will end, but it is finally here. The early signing period takes place Wednesday and as with everything new there is still some mystery as to exactly how things will play out over the course of the next three days as football recruits get their chance to sign with programs across the country.
The Wildcats are still working to get those last-second commits in and securing National Letters of Intent for those already committed. As of now the program has 21 commits overall and the expectation is that most of the class will sign come Wednesday.
There is a lot to get into on the recruiting side this week and that is where a lot of our focus will be in this week’s War Room.
In addition to the big recruiting week, Arizona continues to get ready for the Foster Farms Bowl as well and last week was the final full week of practices in Tucson. The team will get a few days off this week before meeting back up in the Bay Area to begin the final preparations for Purdue and the bowl game.
The Wildcats have had some time to heal up from some late-season injuries and are working toward getting kicking into that next gear next week in Santa Clara. We will bring you all the latest notes as the team gets ready for its bowl game. The down time between the Territorial Cup Game and now has allowed some of the team’s younger players and newcomers to get some extra work. We’ll highlights a few of the players you should know about heading into the offseason who could be ready for that next step.
There is also a coaching search going on still right now and we’ll have more on what’s going on with UA’s staff situation heading into the final weeks of the year.
As you can see there is a lot to get to once again this week, so continue reading for the full football-focused War Room.
Football
Rich Rodriguez has a lot on his plate right now with the early signing period beginning Wednesday and ongoing bowl practices as well. The Wildcats were allowed to have a few days off this week so many of the players have gone home for the time being before the team regroups in Santa Clara later this week. Most of the players will fly in on their own from wherever they live so it is giving some time away from the field for those players to spend with their families.
For the staff it means some more meetings and a chance to focus on recruiting for a couple days, but the last couple weeks have been productive for the ‘Cats.
* We’ll start with taking a look at the most notable things to come out of the last few practices since we held off on our typical post-practice notes the last week. Things were a bit more uneventful but here is a look at things that stood out to us while talking with coaches and players over that time.
- On the injury front things are improving a bit more now. Khalil Tate was a bit under the weather recently as a few members of the team caught the flu and weren’t able to practice or were limited, but when it comes to his shoulder things have improved and he should be good to go for the bowl game. Tate recently said he’s 100 percent healthy and he feels the two shoulder injuries he’s had this season were merely bad luck and didn’t have anything to do with his running style or physical makeup.
“That’s just bad luck,” he said. “You don’t usually fall on your shoulder. Usually when you’re about to you stop yourself, but sometimes it happens too fast. That’s the bad luck.”
- In addition to Tate’s injury another starter working through his injury is defensive end Justin Belknap who has worked and played through various dings this season. The redshirt sophomore didn’t play in the Arizona State game, but he is back and practicing now with the extra time helping him recover from the knee injury he has. The Wildcats have been using tight end Trevor Wood in the position to run with the first team while Belknap gets back to form, but getting another starter back to practice for the bowl game is important.
Luca Bruno was in a green (limited-contact) jersey as he recovers from a concussion that forced him to miss the ASU game. He is expected to play in what will be the final game of his college career in the Foster Farms Bowl.
- Brandon Dawkins will be an interesting topic to follow this offseason and as of now there has been no decision made about what will happen next with him. The redshirt junior quarterback is on pace to graduate in May meaning he could decide to play his final year of college football at another school. As of now that is not something that has been decided on yet, but the feeling right now is that he will be back next season with Arizona. There are still some discussions that will happen or at the very least some thinking, but it wouldn’t be a shock to see him stick around to try and give it one more go next year as a backup with the hopes of earning his starting job back at some point.
- The big news of the week was of course seniors Layth Friekh and Shawn Poindexter being able to return for another season in 2018. Poindexter had a better case than Friekh, but both players were given another year of eligibility by the NCAA and will return for next season at Arizona. Friekh played as a freshman and his appearances came after the midway point, so normally that would burn his redshirt season. However, because his time was so limited seeing the field the NCAA sided with UA that he deserved to get that year back. He will have to miss the first two games of the season next year - a home game against BYU and a road game against Ed Oliver and Houston. There was a precedent set for a similar situation is what Arizona was told about why Friekh will have to miss the two games as a penalty for having played in that first season he was in Tucson.
The Wildcats and Friekh didn’t like the idea of having him miss the start of the season, but it decided the positives of having him for the final 10 games outweighed anything else and accepted the decision.
“It means a lot,” Tate said about the lineman who protects his blind side. “He’s been here for quite a while. He knows the offense well and he’s pretty much made himself a known force. It’s going to be great having him come back and having somebody else that’s a leader and can help lead the offense.”
Poindexter had more of a rock solid case and by the time it went in for review the NCAA decided to take the easy route and not even bother with the actual waiver and opted to just look at the fact that he wasn’t in a school for a couple years. He will be back and that will help give the Wildcats some room to continue building up the group for the future knowing it has a veteran who will be ready to go once again next season.
* On the coaching front Arizona has already made its hire and is simply waiting for the bowl game that coach is participating in to be over to announce it. The newest name that has emerged as a big candidate is Florida Atlantic’s Garin Justice who served as a graduate assistant under Rodriguez at West Virginia back in the 2006. Justice is a West Virginia native and he started for Rodriguez at West Virginia for three seasons before moving into coaching, so there are strong ties to the UA head coach there. We were told this week, as we mentioned on the message boards, that the main reason the Wildcats don’t want to have a press conference Wednesday to announce the 2018 class is so that it doesn’t conflict with their announcement of a new offensive line coach.
FAU takes on Akron Tuesday night in the Boca Raton Bowl so it wouldn’t be a shock to see an announcement in the coming days should the buzz be right and Justice be the guy for the job. In addition to his time at West Virginia he also coached at Florida State as a graduate assistant and late moved on to Division II Concord University where he served as offensive line coach and then head coach up until 2015 before moving over to FAU.
In addition to that hire there have also been some rumblings that more staff movement could come after the early signing period for Arizona. The next wave of coaching moves will come once this week is over and there have been some indications that Jim Michalczik might not be the only coach looking at other options. As of now we cannot disclose who those coaches are, because there is a chance they don’t end up leaving. However, we were told that “one or two” current members of the staff have been looking into positions elsewhere but everyone is in a holding pattern until after the early signing period is over.
* As Arizona has gone through bowl season there have been some names emerging as potential contributors for the upcoming season. A few of the names we were tipped off to and others have been discussed by the players. Here is a look at five names we have heard about over the last couple weeks and what has been positive about that group as the Wildcats have been able to give its scout team members some more work.
- Sione Taufahema: The junior college transfer defensive tackle came into camp out of shape and with an injury. Since then he has worked on trimming down and getting ready to contribute. Taufahema said he is down to 320 pounds now and didn’t disclose where he was at before, but he has lost a good amount of weight. He said his hope is to be down to around 300 pounds by the start of the season because he knows his conditioning is still not where it needs to be. We have heard a lot of good things about his progress this season, however, and Dereck Boles recently said he feels Taufahema is someone who could help the team in 2018.
The Wildcats are still working to get those last-second commits in and securing National Letters of Intent for those already committed. As of now the program has 21 commits overall and the expectation is that most of the class will sign come Wednesday.
There is a lot to get into on the recruiting side this week and that is where a lot of our focus will be in this week’s War Room.
In addition to the big recruiting week, Arizona continues to get ready for the Foster Farms Bowl as well and last week was the final full week of practices in Tucson. The team will get a few days off this week before meeting back up in the Bay Area to begin the final preparations for Purdue and the bowl game.
The Wildcats have had some time to heal up from some late-season injuries and are working toward getting kicking into that next gear next week in Santa Clara. We will bring you all the latest notes as the team gets ready for its bowl game. The down time between the Territorial Cup Game and now has allowed some of the team’s younger players and newcomers to get some extra work. We’ll highlights a few of the players you should know about heading into the offseason who could be ready for that next step.
There is also a coaching search going on still right now and we’ll have more on what’s going on with UA’s staff situation heading into the final weeks of the year.
As you can see there is a lot to get to once again this week, so continue reading for the full football-focused War Room.
Football
Rich Rodriguez has a lot on his plate right now with the early signing period beginning Wednesday and ongoing bowl practices as well. The Wildcats were allowed to have a few days off this week so many of the players have gone home for the time being before the team regroups in Santa Clara later this week. Most of the players will fly in on their own from wherever they live so it is giving some time away from the field for those players to spend with their families.
For the staff it means some more meetings and a chance to focus on recruiting for a couple days, but the last couple weeks have been productive for the ‘Cats.
* We’ll start with taking a look at the most notable things to come out of the last few practices since we held off on our typical post-practice notes the last week. Things were a bit more uneventful but here is a look at things that stood out to us while talking with coaches and players over that time.
- On the injury front things are improving a bit more now. Khalil Tate was a bit under the weather recently as a few members of the team caught the flu and weren’t able to practice or were limited, but when it comes to his shoulder things have improved and he should be good to go for the bowl game. Tate recently said he’s 100 percent healthy and he feels the two shoulder injuries he’s had this season were merely bad luck and didn’t have anything to do with his running style or physical makeup.
“That’s just bad luck,” he said. “You don’t usually fall on your shoulder. Usually when you’re about to you stop yourself, but sometimes it happens too fast. That’s the bad luck.”
- In addition to Tate’s injury another starter working through his injury is defensive end Justin Belknap who has worked and played through various dings this season. The redshirt sophomore didn’t play in the Arizona State game, but he is back and practicing now with the extra time helping him recover from the knee injury he has. The Wildcats have been using tight end Trevor Wood in the position to run with the first team while Belknap gets back to form, but getting another starter back to practice for the bowl game is important.
Luca Bruno was in a green (limited-contact) jersey as he recovers from a concussion that forced him to miss the ASU game. He is expected to play in what will be the final game of his college career in the Foster Farms Bowl.
- Brandon Dawkins will be an interesting topic to follow this offseason and as of now there has been no decision made about what will happen next with him. The redshirt junior quarterback is on pace to graduate in May meaning he could decide to play his final year of college football at another school. As of now that is not something that has been decided on yet, but the feeling right now is that he will be back next season with Arizona. There are still some discussions that will happen or at the very least some thinking, but it wouldn’t be a shock to see him stick around to try and give it one more go next year as a backup with the hopes of earning his starting job back at some point.
- The big news of the week was of course seniors Layth Friekh and Shawn Poindexter being able to return for another season in 2018. Poindexter had a better case than Friekh, but both players were given another year of eligibility by the NCAA and will return for next season at Arizona. Friekh played as a freshman and his appearances came after the midway point, so normally that would burn his redshirt season. However, because his time was so limited seeing the field the NCAA sided with UA that he deserved to get that year back. He will have to miss the first two games of the season next year - a home game against BYU and a road game against Ed Oliver and Houston. There was a precedent set for a similar situation is what Arizona was told about why Friekh will have to miss the two games as a penalty for having played in that first season he was in Tucson.
The Wildcats and Friekh didn’t like the idea of having him miss the start of the season, but it decided the positives of having him for the final 10 games outweighed anything else and accepted the decision.
“It means a lot,” Tate said about the lineman who protects his blind side. “He’s been here for quite a while. He knows the offense well and he’s pretty much made himself a known force. It’s going to be great having him come back and having somebody else that’s a leader and can help lead the offense.”
Poindexter had more of a rock solid case and by the time it went in for review the NCAA decided to take the easy route and not even bother with the actual waiver and opted to just look at the fact that he wasn’t in a school for a couple years. He will be back and that will help give the Wildcats some room to continue building up the group for the future knowing it has a veteran who will be ready to go once again next season.
* On the coaching front Arizona has already made its hire and is simply waiting for the bowl game that coach is participating in to be over to announce it. The newest name that has emerged as a big candidate is Florida Atlantic’s Garin Justice who served as a graduate assistant under Rodriguez at West Virginia back in the 2006. Justice is a West Virginia native and he started for Rodriguez at West Virginia for three seasons before moving into coaching, so there are strong ties to the UA head coach there. We were told this week, as we mentioned on the message boards, that the main reason the Wildcats don’t want to have a press conference Wednesday to announce the 2018 class is so that it doesn’t conflict with their announcement of a new offensive line coach.
FAU takes on Akron Tuesday night in the Boca Raton Bowl so it wouldn’t be a shock to see an announcement in the coming days should the buzz be right and Justice be the guy for the job. In addition to his time at West Virginia he also coached at Florida State as a graduate assistant and late moved on to Division II Concord University where he served as offensive line coach and then head coach up until 2015 before moving over to FAU.
In addition to that hire there have also been some rumblings that more staff movement could come after the early signing period for Arizona. The next wave of coaching moves will come once this week is over and there have been some indications that Jim Michalczik might not be the only coach looking at other options. As of now we cannot disclose who those coaches are, because there is a chance they don’t end up leaving. However, we were told that “one or two” current members of the staff have been looking into positions elsewhere but everyone is in a holding pattern until after the early signing period is over.
* As Arizona has gone through bowl season there have been some names emerging as potential contributors for the upcoming season. A few of the names we were tipped off to and others have been discussed by the players. Here is a look at five names we have heard about over the last couple weeks and what has been positive about that group as the Wildcats have been able to give its scout team members some more work.
- Sione Taufahema: The junior college transfer defensive tackle came into camp out of shape and with an injury. Since then he has worked on trimming down and getting ready to contribute. Taufahema said he is down to 320 pounds now and didn’t disclose where he was at before, but he has lost a good amount of weight. He said his hope is to be down to around 300 pounds by the start of the season because he knows his conditioning is still not where it needs to be. We have heard a lot of good things about his progress this season, however, and Dereck Boles recently said he feels Taufahema is someone who could help the team in 2018.
