Bear Down Wildcats

MrBug708 wrote:One position open right? Could be nobody in line until after signing day, giving Matty D a chance to recruit on the road

Exactly what I think. RR saw the massive recruiting problem. Tried to fix it with Casteel, didn't pan out. He's now fixing it with urgency by getting his new guys out there. Seems like the right thing to do.

I think its one of two possibilities. Either their first choice didn't pan out and they're deciding on a second choice or the person they want told them sure, after letter of intent day so no one can accuse me of stealing recruits. I don't think making time for the interview is that big of a thing. One or the other can travel easy enough and if they plan it right would only lose a few hours of recruiting time.

I heard Greg Byrne on radio past week, said he expected new DL hire real soon. Sounded like within days. Just a hectic time now so late in the cycle and now with so many commit spots to fill in week and a half.

Still nothing huh! I guess we don't want to land any Dline recruits! Lol

My random guess is Wednesday.

Just a guess, but I'm thinking maybe Osia Lewis after signing day.

catinfl wrote:Just a guess, but I'm thinking maybe Osia Lewis after signing day.

Quite possible. I've liked him for awhile. There are others I'd put ahead but he is pretty solid.

Has Osia ever coached a team with a 4 man front? Does that even matter in regards to coaching? Asking for a friend.

ChooChooCat wrote:Has Osia ever coached a team with a 4 man front? Does that even matter in regards to coaching? Asking for a friend.

Yes he has. It depends on the coach. Haha. Most cases at this level, definitely. As far as Lewis is concerned, he definitely can coach a four man front.

I heard it may be promoting Vince Amey.

TuiTouchdown wrote:I heard it may be promoting Vince Amey.

If they were promoting Vince Amey, why the delay? Only reason for the delay would be if they couldn't get the guy they really wanted.

Amey is promoting himself. If he got the job, that would mean the other two applicants did not agree to the contractual terms.

gronk4heisman wrote:

TuiTouchdown wrote:I heard it may be promoting Vince Amey.

If they were promoting Vince Amey, why the delay? Only reason for the delay would be if they couldn't get the guy they really wanted.

Yeah agree. I'd imagine if Amey was the first choice, it would have happened pretty quickly.

gronk4heisman wrote:

TuiTouchdown wrote:I heard it may be promoting Vince Amey.

If they were promoting Vince Amey, why the delay? Only reason for the delay would be if they couldn't get the guy they really wanted.

So Dudek can be off campus?

MrBug708 wrote:

gronk4heisman wrote:

TuiTouchdown wrote:I heard it may be promoting Vince Amey.

If they were promoting Vince Amey, why the delay? Only reason for the delay would be if they couldn't get the guy they really wanted.

So Dudek can be off campus?

That's a good way to look at it, Bug.

Can we confirm that Matty has indeed been off campus recruiting?

He was in Hawaii not too long ago. Can't imagine he'd be on vacation during this time

Matty has been recruiting. Announcement tomorrow perhaps? We'll see.

Yay..that would be in time to poach a recruit or two. Why does everyone else get to do it but we can't?

Tui or Lewis?

chiefzona wrote:Tui or Lewis?

I would be good with either Tui or Lewis. So has the Joe S. Ship sailed?

Is today the day?

UALoco wrote:Is today the day?

nope

I think its pretty clear by now deep in the heart of recruiting season while coming down the home stretch that Rich Rod not only didn't get his 1st choice, he probably didn't even get his 2nd or 3rd either.

This is taking entirely too long to play out and be finalized. No way in hell a high profile new defensive line coach is waiting to join the UofA staff until after signing day unless he's a freaking sadist. This guy is going to come in and coach a freaking disaster of a unit with zero input to its future player core.

I mean seriously we are barely serviceable on the DL as it is and signing day is only days away.

Sorry, but I'm not rationalizing this away as late in the game as we are or trying to polish this turd to make myself feel better.

I'm not even saying it's RR's fault.

Hope I'm way off base on this but I don't see it. DL is going to be as invisible as our current DL coach is and that is bad mojo for the future.

Another missed recruiting season on the DL with even less depth and talent. Good lord.

We are going to be bad defensively next year and it won't even be open for much debate once you see what another missed recruiting season has done.

I'll take an opposing view to vet it out. Maybe a DL coach hasn't been named because it IS such a strong coach. A coach that would have a major impact to their current school if they leave before signing day, so much so that they would be burning a bridge if they didn't leave the school after signing day. A coach with strong character and strong future that doesn't believe in burning bridges, which is a sure way to reduce your future opportunities for advancement, a la Yates not burning Boise down to the ground when he left. Maybe RR is willing to wait in order to get his man. Maybe RR is now playing the long game by writing off 2016 in order to blow out the 2017 class. Either way, I love my Cats and being positive is the only thing that keeps me going ..otherwise I would jump off a bridge.

UALoco wrote:I'll take an opposing view to vet it out. Maybe a DL coach hasn't been named because it IS such a strong coach. A coach that would have a major impact to their current school if they leave before signing day, so much so that they would be burning a bridge if they didn't leave the school after signing day. A coach with strong character and strong future that doesn't believe in burning bridges, which is a sure way to reduce your future opportunities for advancement, a la Yates not burning Boise down to the ground when he left. Maybe RR is willing to wait in order to get his man. Maybe RR is now playing the long game by writing off 2016 in order to blow out the 2017 class. Either way, I love my Cats and being positive is the only thing that keeps me going ..otherwise I would jump off a bridge.

I appreciate your attempt at optimism... But it is not too convincing.

When have you ever heard of a college position coach delaying his move to help save the recruiting class at the school he is departing? If I was the hiring coach, I'd say you need to think about your future, and not your past.

While we are fantasizing, let's throw out the possibility that we are hiring the DL coach from either the Panthers or the Broncos and he does not want to distract his team before the Super Bowl.

Harvey Specter wrote:

UALoco wrote:I'll take an opposing view to vet it out. Maybe a DL coach hasn't been named because it IS such a strong coach. A coach that would have a major impact to their current school if they leave before signing day, so much so that they would be burning a bridge if they didn't leave the school after signing day. A coach with strong character and strong future that doesn't believe in burning bridges, which is a sure way to reduce your future opportunities for advancement, a la Yates not burning Boise down to the ground when he left. Maybe RR is willing to wait in order to get his man. Maybe RR is now playing the long game by writing off 2016 in order to blow out the 2017 class. Either way, I love my Cats and being positive is the only thing that keeps me going ..otherwise I would jump off a bridge.

I appreciate your attempt at optimism... But it is not too convincing.

When have you ever heard of a college position coach delaying his move to help save the recruiting class at the school he is departing? If I was the hiring coach, I'd say you need to think about your future, and not your past.

While we are fantasizing, let's throw out the possibility that we are hiring the DL coach from either the Panthers or the Broncos and he does not want to distract his team before the Super Bowl.

It's more common then you think, there was an article about it just last year:

http://247sports.com/Bolt/How-can-we-fi ... y-35688461

and here:

http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.co ... to-gators/

I personally am very confident that we are going to get a big hire who has roots at whatever school they are leaving. Just sucks for this class.

gronk4heisman wrote:

Harvey Specter wrote:

UALoco wrote:I'll take an opposing view to vet it out. Maybe a DL coach hasn't been named because it IS such a strong coach. A coach that would have a major impact to their current school if they leave before signing day, so much so that they would be burning a bridge if they didn't leave the school after signing day. A coach with strong character and strong future that doesn't believe in burning bridges, which is a sure way to reduce your future opportunities for advancement, a la Yates not burning Boise down to the ground when he left. Maybe RR is willing to wait in order to get his man. Maybe RR is now playing the long game by writing off 2016 in order to blow out the 2017 class. Either way, I love my Cats and being positive is the only thing that keeps me going ..otherwise I would jump off a bridge.

I appreciate your attempt at optimism... But it is not too convincing.

When have you ever heard of a college position coach delaying his move to help save the recruiting class at the school he is departing? If I was the hiring coach, I'd say you need to think about your future, and not your past.

While we are fantasizing, let's throw out the possibility that we are hiring the DL coach from either the Panthers or the Broncos and he does not want to distract his team before the Super Bowl.

It's more common then you think, there was an article about it just last year:

http://247sports.com/Bolt/How-can-we-fi ... y-35688461

and here:

http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.co ... to-gators/

I personally am very confident that we are going to get a big hire who has roots at whatever school they are leaving. Just sucks for this class.

I don't have to convince anyone that coaches stay past signing day to maintain bridges because it is a occurring phenomenon, you can choose to ignore it if you like.

The ability of some on this board to whine and complain and over-speculate is astonishing to me from time to time. Your imaginations are incredible. And by that I mean:

in·cred·i·ble
inˈkredəb(ə)l/
adjective
1.
impossible to believe.
synonyms: unbelievable, beyond belief, hard to believe, unconvincing, far-fetched, implausible, improbable, highly unlikely, dubious, doubtful

Rich Rod has overhauled the ENTIRE defensive staff this off season - something the majority of us could only dream of and wish for, without any realistic hope that it would actually come to pass. But he did it. He shit-canned the lot of them. It's a damn miracle!

Obviously there is a timing or recruiting (or both) consideration with the announcement of a new DL coach. Who cares?

Intellectually, you absolutely KNOW that it's going to take some time, at least as season or two, to overhaul the defense. It has to start somewhere, and it has. Patience.

Get over yourselves.

But I want a good defense now (whiney english girl from Willy Wonka Movie voice)

You don't have to be Veruca Salt to cut through all the drama and seek a rational answer as to why recruiting defense to a program with a defense-first tradition has fallen off such a cliff recently.

You have to respond, and quickly, to the second-to-worst class in the Pac-12 two years after your team won a South Division title. Instead, a defensive line coach still hasn't been hired and more than half the whole class has decommitted.

And fans still respond by attacking other fans. If RichRod doesn't know what he's doing, he certainly has the right demographic of fanbase that'll allow him to get away with it.

It wasn't acceptable for Tomey to stop recruiting after 1998, so it certainly isn't acceptable to bleed more than half a recruiting class.

I'd have more confidence in a coach who would at least attempt some form of honest damage control. Instead, the silence, to me, is indicative of scrambling.

And the silence as to why the recruits are leaving has little to do with switching coordinators and more to do with a perception problem that our staff doesn't know what the **** it's going after defensively.

catgrad97 wrote:If RichRod doesn't know what he's doing, he certainly has the right demographic of fanbase that'll allow him to get away with it.

Oh, wait, it's up to us?

Or it means we just switched to a new system and are still getting our coaches and people in place and the guys recruited before were recruited by different people for different system... or you can freak out and say the sky is falling and Rich Rod is terrible and nobody knows anything about what they're doing. I'll go with the first scenario...which is the only logical and sane one.

Not really what I said, but thanks for overreacting and trusting blindly in our head coach, guys. He'll really appreciate your support after he wins nine games one season down the road, then takes off for the next job offer.

Every year, I like football less and less. The inability to have a critical conversation with other fans is a big part of that.

Only explanation I can think of.

catgrad97 wrote:Not really what I said, but thanks for overreacting and trusting blindly in our head coach, guys. He'll really appreciate your support after he wins nine games one season down the road, then takes off for the next job offer.

Every year, I like football less and less. The inability to have a critical conversation with other fans is a big part of that.

The "inability to have a critical conversation" doesn't ring true to me, because when it comes to football your posts are almost universally negative. There's fair criticism and then there's just saying over and over "U of A football sucks." You keep throwing in bits about how RR is going to leave, how no one aims anywhere above average, how the defense is never going to improve, etc. The number of posts on the football board you've made going back three months that imply any sort of goodwill toward the program is a total of one. The rest of it is just constant b*tching and saying that anyone who doesn't join your complain train is naive or "trusting blindly." I don't always agree with others on this board but they're at least making an effort to actually talk football instead of just moan and groan all the time.

catgrad97 wrote:Not really what I said, but thanks for overreacting and trusting blindly in our head coach, guys. He'll really appreciate your support after he wins nine games one season down the road, then takes off for the next job offer.

Every year, I like football less and less. The inability to have a critical conversation with other fans is a big part of that.

No, it's exactly what you said. And I have no idea what message board conversations have to do with being a fan of and watching football.

UALoco wrote:

gronk4heisman wrote:

Harvey Specter wrote:

UALoco wrote:I'll take an opposing view to vet it out. Maybe a DL coach hasn't been named because it IS such a strong coach. A coach that would have a major impact to their current school if they leave before signing day, so much so that they would be burning a bridge if they didn't leave the school after signing day. A coach with strong character and strong future that doesn't believe in burning bridges, which is a sure way to reduce your future opportunities for advancement, a la Yates not burning Boise down to the ground when he left. Maybe RR is willing to wait in order to get his man. Maybe RR is now playing the long game by writing off 2016 in order to blow out the 2017 class. Either way, I love my Cats and being positive is the only thing that keeps me going ..otherwise I would jump off a bridge.

I appreciate your attempt at optimism... But it is not too convincing.

When have you ever heard of a college position coach delaying his move to help save the recruiting class at the school he is departing? If I was the hiring coach, I'd say you need to think about your future, and not your past.

While we are fantasizing, let's throw out the possibility that we are hiring the DL coach from either the Panthers or the Broncos and he does not want to distract his team before the Super Bowl.

It's more common then you think, there was an article about it just last year:

http://247sports.com/Bolt/How-can-we-fi ... y-35688461

and here:

http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.co ... to-gators/

I personally am very confident that we are going to get a big hire who has roots at whatever school they are leaving. Just sucks for this class.

I don't have to convince anyone that coaches stay past signing day to maintain bridges because it is a occurring phenomenon, you can choose to ignore it if you like.

My apologies, I stand corrected and was wrong.

I had heard about the instances where position coaches waited to announce because they were headed to the NFL. Blows me away that it happens regularly with guys going to other schools - but reality trumps my speculation.

BearDown89 wrote:The ability of some on this board to whine and complain and over-speculate is astonishing to me from time to time. Your imaginations are incredible. And by that I mean:

in·cred·i·ble
inˈkredəb(ə)l/
adjective
1.
impossible to believe.
synonyms: unbelievable, beyond belief, hard to believe, unconvincing, far-fetched, implausible, improbable, highly unlikely, dubious, doubtful

Rich Rod has overhauled the ENTIRE defensive staff this off season - something the majority of us could only dream of and wish for, without any realistic hope that it would actually come to pass. But he did it. He shit-canned the lot of them. It's a damn miracle!

Obviously there is a timing or recruiting (or both) consideration with the announcement of a new DL coach. Who cares?

Intellectually, you absolutely KNOW that it's going to take some time, at least as season or two, to overhaul the defense. It has to start somewhere, and it has. Patience.

Get over yourselves.

Very good point.

I am happy we made a change and did not expect any gangbusters with this class. I just did not expect it to go this badly. We have no choice but to hope for the best and see what this class brings, then hope we can build for the future.

It's frustrating that we seem to be 3 years away in perpetuity, but we should be used to that by now.

Harvey, my hats off to you. Someone refuted your post with facts that he could verify and you acknowledged your mistake and changed your tune. You get three stars and a lot more respect from me for whatever that's worth. I still wish you wouldn't whine so much.
Catgrad, I don't think you have a problem with intelligent discussions here as much as you have a problem with anyone that doesn't agree with you. Take a valium, have an enema and go sit in the corner.
We have no idea who the DL coach is going to be but I do think they have someone. If we had missed on our first or second choices we would have heard something by now. Someone official telling the press they're interviewing everyone and take this job very seriously and yadi yadi yadi. But we've heard nothing. I think they have someone and have a reason they aren't announcing it and the only reason I can think of is LOI day.Anyone that thinks there aren't any honorable coaches out there any more I feel sorry for you.
I don't know what Dudek's post meant but I have to think its something positive. I can't imagine he would have posted that to taunt us with some bad news. I imagine its about recruits.
I'm glad most have realized why this class isn't going to be dynamite and anyone that doesn't lives in a bubble. That being said, this class is going to be better than most people think and I'll take another step and say I think there's already more defensive talent on this roster than people think. I think the previous coaches not only under recruited a bit but undercoached what they had.

azpenguin wrote:

catgrad97 wrote:Not really what I said, but thanks for overreacting and trusting blindly in our head coach, guys. He'll really appreciate your support after he wins nine games one season down the road, then takes off for the next job offer.

Every year, I like football less and less. The inability to have a critical conversation with other fans is a big part of that.

The "inability to have a critical conversation" doesn't ring true to me, because when it comes to football your posts are almost universally negative. There's fair criticism and then there's just saying over and over "U of A football sucks." You keep throwing in bits about how RR is going to leave, how no one aims anywhere above average, how the defense is never going to improve, etc. The number of posts on the football board you've made going back three months that imply any sort of goodwill toward the program is a total of one. The rest of it is just constant b*tching and saying that anyone who doesn't join your complain train is naive or "trusting blindly." I don't always agree with others on this board but they're at least making an effort to actually talk football instead of just moan and groan all the time.

And responding with attempts at internet memes--much less "Take a valium, have an enema and go sit in the corner"--is any better?

Unlike what ASUHATER's comprehension-challenged response would have you believe, I do praise this program when it's worthy. Less than a week ago, I responded to the Williams and Yates hires that the program is getting serious about defense again and that we should pray for the rest of the conference.

That's not freaking out.

It's not remotely saying the sky is falling.

It's not saying Rich Rod is terrible, because I think he will win again with this program.

What I believe is that RichRod is not getting out in front of the message in this transition, leaving not only fans but recruits to fill in the blanks. What head coach do you know takes nearly a month in the off-season to hire a line coach? The resulting confusion IMHO causes more damage than any simple scheme or coaching change.

If you want to believe otherwise in spite of the lack of evidence, fine. All I can speak to is the decommits--and, what hurts more, the lack of in-state commitments, even relative to ASU--which speak louder than any attempts even on this board to devalue my take.

To conjecture that a head coach is still getting coaches and people in place switching to a new system, and that it is "the only logical and sane" conclusion to this situation lacks even the level of skepticism we apply to the more successful basketball program.

And any good fan is skeptical, realizing he votes his support for his team with his dollars. Maybe I'm going to just stop voting with said dollars until I see RichRod has figured out what direction he's going in with his new hires.

All of this is not being any more critical than I am of basketball. If the team is successful, I'll always be happy to be wrong. Disagreements are fine as long as they're based on something other than conjecture or wishful thinking.

So what evidence am I missing here?

Yes, player development. Rather than focusing on this recruiting class, I'm much more interested to see if there's an appreciable improvement in player development under this new staff with a new scheme and a fresh perspective. I've read several times, as have many of you, that Yates favors an attacking, risk-taking, aggressive style of defense. Have many of us not been clamoring for those exact characteristics in opposition to the former DC's conservative play calling? It was my understanding that the 3-3-5 was complex, tricky to learn and restricted the players from acting naturally and instinctually. Is the 4-2-5 easier to learn and run from a player perspective? I think there are plenty of guys on the roster for the new staff to work with. It will be interesting to see the development of the two-deep next fall.

Hell, even Chief's come around. He's bellying right up to the Kool-Aid bar with this new staff. That has to count for something.

The 3-3-5 worked better when they played more aggressively and took more risks. They started blitzing more and taking more chances against USC and ASU and the defense looked completely different, knocking the hell out of both Kessler and Wilson. I'm guessing that Yates is going to say "damn the torpedoes" and go ahead and risk getting burned downfield in exchange for attacking the backfield aggressively.

catgrad97 wrote:

azpenguin wrote:

catgrad97 wrote:Not really what I said, but thanks for overreacting and trusting blindly in our head coach, guys. He'll really appreciate your support after he wins nine games one season down the road, then takes off for the next job offer.

Every year, I like football less and less. The inability to have a critical conversation with other fans is a big part of that.

The "inability to have a critical conversation" doesn't ring true to me, because when it comes to football your posts are almost universally negative. There's fair criticism and then there's just saying over and over "U of A football sucks." You keep throwing in bits about how RR is going to leave, how no one aims anywhere above average, how the defense is never going to improve, etc. The number of posts on the football board you've made going back three months that imply any sort of goodwill toward the program is a total of one. The rest of it is just constant b*tching and saying that anyone who doesn't join your complain train is naive or "trusting blindly." I don't always agree with others on this board but they're at least making an effort to actually talk football instead of just moan and groan all the time.

What I believe is that RichRod is not getting out in front of the message in this transition, leaving not only fans but recruits to fill in the blanks. What head coach do you know takes nearly a month in the off-season to hire a line coach? The resulting confusion IMHO causes more damage than any simple scheme or coaching change.

Do you really believe that RR and the staff are playing hide the ball with recruits and leaving them to fill in the blanks? Seriously. Come on. It is the very peak of the recruiting season. I'm sure the staff is making their collective pitch in earnest at this point in the proceedings. I imagine that includes explaining to recruits what the plan is, who the coaches are, etc. Exactly what message are you missing that he's not getting out in front of? He replaced the entire defensive staff. Here's the message: "We need a new defense and I'm working on it."

As to leaving the fans to fill in the blanks, I doubt RR cares what they imagine. He's busy. This notion that we have some God-given right to know everything immediately because, damn it!, we are fans is absurd. We'll know when they want us to know and I'm fine with that.

No sh*t greg. I get slapped with the Chicken Little tag in this thread even though I didn't even mention the atrocious tackling the second half of last season.

RichRod has replaced three coaches. They have to replace more than twice as many Class of '16 recruits. It begs the question of why.

How is this not a perception problem getting these new coaches into the homes of the kids the program wants?

The recruits are going to feel entitled to an answer to that question. Yet it's none of anybody else's business?

OK, guess I'll just go listen to one of our basketball coach's pressers, where he answers every single one of those potential questions without even having to be asked.

They aren't announcing to the public because of the possible ramifications to recruiting for the new coach. I would call it professional courtesy to the other program.

azgreg wrote:Just teach the kids how to fucking tackle please!!!!!

This has been addressed already by RR. Hence the change in focus of the spring camp and possibly working on individual drills instead of a spring game. Tackling will be worked on.

catgrad97 wrote:No sh*t greg. I get slapped with the Chicken Little tag in this thread even though I didn't even mention the atrocious tackling the second half of last season.

RichRod has replaced three coaches. They have to replace more than twice as many Class of '16 recruits. It begs the question of why.

How is this not a perception problem getting these new coaches into the homes of the kids the program wants?

The recruits are going to feel entitled to an answer to that question. Yet it's none of anybody else's business?

OK, guess I'll just go listen to one of our basketball coach's pressers, where he answers every single one of those potential questions without even having to be asked.

PEACE!!!!!!!!!!

wyo-cat wrote:They aren't announcing to the public because of the possible ramifications to recruiting for the new coach. I would call it professional courtesy to the other program.

So you believe a new line coach has already been hired?