Football is back. Basketball is back and it’s full steam ahead to the 2017-18 seasons and school year. There is plenty to get to in what was one of the busiest weeks of year so far. Here is this week’s War Room which will be split into two parts this week. Today’s version will feature football and football recruiting coming off a busy stretch for the Wildcats.
Football
There will be plenty to get into over the next month as things begin with August camp. Arizona is starting a day early with camp opening up Monday evening and continuing through the middle of August everyday except Sundays. Camp will officially end Aug. 19 and the following week the Wildcats will get into their normal practice routine for the season. There are a lot of questions and a lot that will be answered over the next several weeks.
* We’ll begin this week by breaking down some of the top things discussed at Pac-12 Media Days last Wednesday as Arizona was the first team to take the stage. Rich Rodriguez also took some time at lunch for more discussions and more interviews that gave even more insight into the team. Here is a rundown of what was discussed in the order it was discussed in during our time with Rodriguez at lunch.
- Rodriguez will, of course, get a chance to coach his son this season and that will officially begin Monday. Rhett Rodriguez will be one of seven quarterbacks on the roster this season and he will certainly have a good knowledge of the system he has been learning his entire life. For Rodriguez coaching his son is not going to be any different than other players.
“He should be the easiest guy to coach because he’s heard it all for 19 years,” Rodriguez said. “... In a lot of ways I almost feel bad for him because they’re already treating him like an extension of the staff ... like he’s going to have the inside scoop. I’m not going to tell him more than anybody else. He’s such a good kid and so mature.
“He’ll know his role. ... He’s been good and I think we’ve got a good dynamic right now.”
- The phrase “recruiting mistakes” has come up in the past with Rodriguez in discussing how his program has ended up at the bottom of the Pac-12. Rodriguez feels his current group is the best he’s had in terms of talent but those past classes are still something UA is making up for.
“Some of them weren’t as good as others,” he said. “Some if it was just bad luck, but part of the urgency and the changes I made ... with the staff a year ago was more recruiting related than scheme related. They were really good coaches, but we had to invigorate and get back into recruiting and it’s not easy to recruit at Arizona. There’s gonna be some challenges, but the results from last year were because of failures in recruiting.
“It starts with me and I’ve addressed it with my staff. This year’s class you all judge them in two or three years, but top to bottom talent-wise this is the best class we’ve had and there will be 20-25 of them – including walk-ons – that will play this year.”
- When it comes to recruiting Arizona is at a slower pace than it was a year ago at this time. The Wildcats were over 20 commitments into it when camp began a year ago and UA has not yet reached double digits for 2018. For Rodriguez it is all about quality and finding the right fit, which is taking more time this year.
“Would I take a class of 25 five-stars?” Rodriguez said. “You betcha, because most of them are probably on the mark. We ain’t gonna get them, but we can get some. Whether it’s the Scooby Wright thing or whatever, we’ve got to get the guys we think are high-level guys that can develop at Arizona when we can get them. ... We make them all tell us no. ... The key is you have to be able to have really good players when you go on to the next one.
“When you’re not a brand-name school you get a masters in learning how to deal with rejection. ... We get rejected all the time, but you have to have a plan. You have to be aggressive in recruiting and active on social media.”
- In addition to that recruiting discussion Rodriguez was asked about his moves to other areas in this current cycle and Texas is the big one that UA has explored and started to have some success in again.
“Southern California will always be a base and Arizona will always be the first place, but I didn’t even try Texas,” he said. “I thought well, ‘Texas kids won’t come,’ and that was a mistake. I did it because my staff didn’t have experience there and I hired a couple guys who had experience recruiting Texas and had some ties. Even though it’s over-recruited there’s really good players that love football. I’m always going to go to Florida because there’s good players who love football and they’ll come to Arizona.
“Whether you’re in Florida, Texas or Southern California you still have to get on a plane to get to Tucson but you don’t go through Tucson on your way anywhere. You’ve gotta go to Vegas and take a right, so the challenge for us and we’ve expanded it because we’re trying to get the best players we can. ... We’ll see how that pans out.
“... And we’ve gotta have success with the Polynesian players because Arizona they’ll fit in here and they’ll feel comfortable here. So that’s a good start and we may double that next year.”
- At the time Rodriguez had not yet hired Matt Dudek’s replacement, but eventually we know that happened over the weekend with the Wildcats bringing former player Chuck Cecil on board as its new director of player personnel. It was something that had been in the works for a little while now and while Cecil will have much different responsibilities than Dudek he will still be able to make an impact on the program because of his history in the game.
“We’re replacing Matt from his duties from inside,” Rodriguez said at Pac-12 Media Day. “I’ll use the position and the salary to probably hire some experience eyes whether that’s NFL or college to come in and help from an analytical standpoint and player development standpoint. So what’s Matt job was – dealing with personnel, recruiting and compliance – will be done by guys on staff and then I’ll get someone hired soon for the player development piece of it.
“Matt’s been good. As you know Matt gets out there with social media and he got a nice raise to go to Michigan. He’s gotta buy some winter clothes now. Matt was a good worker.”
Most of the jobs that Dudek did will fall on Billy Kirelawich (player personnel/administrative) and Chris Singletary (recruiting) now with Cecil on board with the former Wildcat taking over much of the player development part of the duties. Arizona hoped to have Cecil in more of a coaching role but NCAA rules limit what he can do so most of his work will be done off the field.
- Jalen Cochran was an interesting story after spring ball. The redshirt freshman defensive end left the program to return a little closer to home opting to transfer to Miami (Ohio) late in the spring. Eventually as the summer was getting underway he announced his return to Arizona. Now we know the full story with Cochran’s grandmother being the reason all this took place. His grandmother was ill and he wanted to be closer to her, but when he arrived Rodriguez said she informed Cochran to head back to Arizona and she wrote a letter to the UA head coach asking if her grandson could return to the program.
Cochran has been back with the program for the last couple months and while he may have to do some extra work to get back fully in the coaching staff’s good graces he should be a go for the season.
"He returned home and his grandma said, 'what the hell are you doing here?'" Rodriguez joked at Pac-12 Media Day. "She wrote me a long letter and told him 'you better get you butt back there.' So she asked me if I would take him back and that she's better with him going to Arizona. So I told him, 'we'll give you the summer and if you do what you're supposed to do in the summer we'll let you back on the team' and he's done that so far.
"... He's been back since June. I didn't make any promises to him until camp starts."
- DeAndre Miller is expected to be back for the season but he will miss camp with a foot injury that required surgery. The Wildcats expect him to make a full recovery and are counting on him in a big way for this year’s defense. Rodriguez said that Miller is in the best shape he has been in over the course of his career and there are some lofty expectations for him again this year.
“He’s got a stress thing with his foot and hopefully he’ll be back for the first game,” Rodriguez said at Pac-12 Media Day, an event Miller was supposed to attend. “... He just had surgery and I didn’t want him hopping around. ... It was a stress thing, I don’t know the medical part of it.”
- Rodriguez said that every one of the players he signed both to scholarships and as walk-ons qualified with the program.
- JJ Taylor is back to 100 percent according to Rich Rodriguez and that is giving the Wildcats some more chances to do some other things. He considers Taylor a starter along with senior Nick Wilson and he said last week that both could see time on the field together with Taylor in the slot.
“He wasn’t 100 percent then (spring ball) but he is now,” Rodriguez said. “He and Nick are good to go. ... We’ll play them both at the same time. JJ can play in the slot. ... There’s two starters. They’re both healthy I’ve got two starters.”
Football
There will be plenty to get into over the next month as things begin with August camp. Arizona is starting a day early with camp opening up Monday evening and continuing through the middle of August everyday except Sundays. Camp will officially end Aug. 19 and the following week the Wildcats will get into their normal practice routine for the season. There are a lot of questions and a lot that will be answered over the next several weeks.
* We’ll begin this week by breaking down some of the top things discussed at Pac-12 Media Days last Wednesday as Arizona was the first team to take the stage. Rich Rodriguez also took some time at lunch for more discussions and more interviews that gave even more insight into the team. Here is a rundown of what was discussed in the order it was discussed in during our time with Rodriguez at lunch.
- Rodriguez will, of course, get a chance to coach his son this season and that will officially begin Monday. Rhett Rodriguez will be one of seven quarterbacks on the roster this season and he will certainly have a good knowledge of the system he has been learning his entire life. For Rodriguez coaching his son is not going to be any different than other players.
“He should be the easiest guy to coach because he’s heard it all for 19 years,” Rodriguez said. “... In a lot of ways I almost feel bad for him because they’re already treating him like an extension of the staff ... like he’s going to have the inside scoop. I’m not going to tell him more than anybody else. He’s such a good kid and so mature.
“He’ll know his role. ... He’s been good and I think we’ve got a good dynamic right now.”
- The phrase “recruiting mistakes” has come up in the past with Rodriguez in discussing how his program has ended up at the bottom of the Pac-12. Rodriguez feels his current group is the best he’s had in terms of talent but those past classes are still something UA is making up for.
“Some of them weren’t as good as others,” he said. “Some if it was just bad luck, but part of the urgency and the changes I made ... with the staff a year ago was more recruiting related than scheme related. They were really good coaches, but we had to invigorate and get back into recruiting and it’s not easy to recruit at Arizona. There’s gonna be some challenges, but the results from last year were because of failures in recruiting.
“It starts with me and I’ve addressed it with my staff. This year’s class you all judge them in two or three years, but top to bottom talent-wise this is the best class we’ve had and there will be 20-25 of them – including walk-ons – that will play this year.”
- When it comes to recruiting Arizona is at a slower pace than it was a year ago at this time. The Wildcats were over 20 commitments into it when camp began a year ago and UA has not yet reached double digits for 2018. For Rodriguez it is all about quality and finding the right fit, which is taking more time this year.
“Would I take a class of 25 five-stars?” Rodriguez said. “You betcha, because most of them are probably on the mark. We ain’t gonna get them, but we can get some. Whether it’s the Scooby Wright thing or whatever, we’ve got to get the guys we think are high-level guys that can develop at Arizona when we can get them. ... We make them all tell us no. ... The key is you have to be able to have really good players when you go on to the next one.
“When you’re not a brand-name school you get a masters in learning how to deal with rejection. ... We get rejected all the time, but you have to have a plan. You have to be aggressive in recruiting and active on social media.”
- In addition to that recruiting discussion Rodriguez was asked about his moves to other areas in this current cycle and Texas is the big one that UA has explored and started to have some success in again.
“Southern California will always be a base and Arizona will always be the first place, but I didn’t even try Texas,” he said. “I thought well, ‘Texas kids won’t come,’ and that was a mistake. I did it because my staff didn’t have experience there and I hired a couple guys who had experience recruiting Texas and had some ties. Even though it’s over-recruited there’s really good players that love football. I’m always going to go to Florida because there’s good players who love football and they’ll come to Arizona.
“Whether you’re in Florida, Texas or Southern California you still have to get on a plane to get to Tucson but you don’t go through Tucson on your way anywhere. You’ve gotta go to Vegas and take a right, so the challenge for us and we’ve expanded it because we’re trying to get the best players we can. ... We’ll see how that pans out.
“... And we’ve gotta have success with the Polynesian players because Arizona they’ll fit in here and they’ll feel comfortable here. So that’s a good start and we may double that next year.”
- At the time Rodriguez had not yet hired Matt Dudek’s replacement, but eventually we know that happened over the weekend with the Wildcats bringing former player Chuck Cecil on board as its new director of player personnel. It was something that had been in the works for a little while now and while Cecil will have much different responsibilities than Dudek he will still be able to make an impact on the program because of his history in the game.
“We’re replacing Matt from his duties from inside,” Rodriguez said at Pac-12 Media Day. “I’ll use the position and the salary to probably hire some experience eyes whether that’s NFL or college to come in and help from an analytical standpoint and player development standpoint. So what’s Matt job was – dealing with personnel, recruiting and compliance – will be done by guys on staff and then I’ll get someone hired soon for the player development piece of it.
“Matt’s been good. As you know Matt gets out there with social media and he got a nice raise to go to Michigan. He’s gotta buy some winter clothes now. Matt was a good worker.”
Most of the jobs that Dudek did will fall on Billy Kirelawich (player personnel/administrative) and Chris Singletary (recruiting) now with Cecil on board with the former Wildcat taking over much of the player development part of the duties. Arizona hoped to have Cecil in more of a coaching role but NCAA rules limit what he can do so most of his work will be done off the field.
- Jalen Cochran was an interesting story after spring ball. The redshirt freshman defensive end left the program to return a little closer to home opting to transfer to Miami (Ohio) late in the spring. Eventually as the summer was getting underway he announced his return to Arizona. Now we know the full story with Cochran’s grandmother being the reason all this took place. His grandmother was ill and he wanted to be closer to her, but when he arrived Rodriguez said she informed Cochran to head back to Arizona and she wrote a letter to the UA head coach asking if her grandson could return to the program.
Cochran has been back with the program for the last couple months and while he may have to do some extra work to get back fully in the coaching staff’s good graces he should be a go for the season.
"He returned home and his grandma said, 'what the hell are you doing here?'" Rodriguez joked at Pac-12 Media Day. "She wrote me a long letter and told him 'you better get you butt back there.' So she asked me if I would take him back and that she's better with him going to Arizona. So I told him, 'we'll give you the summer and if you do what you're supposed to do in the summer we'll let you back on the team' and he's done that so far.
"... He's been back since June. I didn't make any promises to him until camp starts."
- DeAndre Miller is expected to be back for the season but he will miss camp with a foot injury that required surgery. The Wildcats expect him to make a full recovery and are counting on him in a big way for this year’s defense. Rodriguez said that Miller is in the best shape he has been in over the course of his career and there are some lofty expectations for him again this year.
“He’s got a stress thing with his foot and hopefully he’ll be back for the first game,” Rodriguez said at Pac-12 Media Day, an event Miller was supposed to attend. “... He just had surgery and I didn’t want him hopping around. ... It was a stress thing, I don’t know the medical part of it.”
- Rodriguez said that every one of the players he signed both to scholarships and as walk-ons qualified with the program.
- JJ Taylor is back to 100 percent according to Rich Rodriguez and that is giving the Wildcats some more chances to do some other things. He considers Taylor a starter along with senior Nick Wilson and he said last week that both could see time on the field together with Taylor in the slot.
“He wasn’t 100 percent then (spring ball) but he is now,” Rodriguez said. “He and Nick are good to go. ... We’ll play them both at the same time. JJ can play in the slot. ... There’s two starters. They’re both healthy I’ve got two starters.”
