Bear Down Wildcats

Players hurt, clueless offensive line, defense nowhere to be found. Will we even make a bowl?

I don't think it's panic at all to downgrade us to a 6-7 win team right now. That's just reality.

Too early.

OSUCat wrote:Too early.

Yup. UTSA always plays us tight and Scooby could potentially be back within a few weeks. We need to get this sorted out by the UCLA game.

FightWildcatsFight wrote:

OSUCat wrote:Too early.

Yup. UTSA always plays us tight and Scooby could potentially be back within a few weeks. We need to get this sorted out by the UCLA game.

Aside from 2 years ago when we beat them 38-13

Way too early to panic. One game with injuries and suspensions. If it is not better by NAU then it is time to panic

It's never too early for ASUHATER to start panicking

Way too early.

But what does "panic" mean in this case?

7 wins or more? Has to be 9 or 10? Repeat South Champs? Everyone has their own definition of what a disappointing season looks like. I expected Scooby or no Scooby if AZ finished with 8 wins, fans would be bringing out the Bye week issue.

Many of us predicted knowing the No-Bye week issue was already in play.

For me 7 wins or less OR a losing conference record would be a big disappointment. 8 wins a little disappointing. 9 wins expected. Scooby is a great player. Even if he's out, someone should picked up some of his production (scheme). But that shouldn't on a very good team (defending P12 champs) dictate many more losses. Shouldn't. AZ secondary had biggest area to replace departing starters from LY.

We're not there yet...

Cats are 1-0...

RazorsEdgeAZ wrote:For me 7 wins or less OR a losing conference record would be a big disappointment. 8 wins a little disappointing. 9 wins expected. Scooby is a great player. Even if he's out, someone should picked up some of his production (scheme). But that shouldn't on a very good team (defending P12 champs) dictate many more losses. Shouldn't. AZ secondary had biggest area to replace departing starters from LY.

Turituri would be the obvious one to step in and take up the slack production-wise, but he was out most of the game too.

If Scooby is out the whole year and we go 8-4 I'll be fine with that. Anything less than 8 wins is a season failure.

who is Hayden Gregory and where did he come from?

RazorsEdgeAZ wrote:Way too early.

But what does "panic" mean in this case?

7 wins or more? Has to be 9 or 10? Repeat South Champs? Everyone has their own definition of what a disappointing season looks like. I expected Scooby or no Scooby if AZ finished with 8 wins, fans would be bringing out the Bye week issue.

Many of us predicted knowing the No-Bye week issue was already in play.

For me 7 wins or less OR a losing conference record would be a big disappointment. 8 wins a little disappointing. 9 wins expected. Scooby is a great player. Even if he's out, someone should picked up some of his production (scheme). But that shouldn't on a very good team (defending P12 champs) dictate many more losses. Shouldn't. AZ secondary had biggest area to replace departing starters from LY.

We're not there yet...

Cats are 1-0...

8 wins is a disappointment. Anything less is a garbage season.

This thread needs a little bit of "Least we're not Colorado."

True. Colorado 100% absolutely needed that won to have hopes for a bowl since they have to go 7-6 to get in one. Now they have to win their other 3 ooc games and win 4 conference games in the south.

My expectations with or without Scooby are the same. If it's not the QB, one player should not be the difference between winning and losing. I expect a much better showing @Nevada next week.

We played a lot of kids last night that I thought would never see the field. I'm not ready to panic yet since the team hasn't.

I don't have the time to look at metrics, but my recollection is for most of the past 5-10 years we've been soft coming out of the gate at the beginning of the season (similar to our going into the bowl games without the right attitude or preparation).

By the time the conference games begin we start playing more to our abilities so I'm not worried at this point.

Something to be said about our cupcake OOC schedule; allows us to get these wins without being fully prepared to play. I'll never forget that Penn State fiasco.

UAtrue wrote:
By the time the conference games begin we start playing more to our abilities so I'm not worried at this point.

Something to be said about our cupcake OOC schedule; allows us to get these wins without being fully prepared to play. I'll never forget that Penn State fiasco.

Agreed. I'm a huge opponent of our weak OOC scheduling, however, I completely understand why RR and GB like it. We would've been waxed by most P5 schools last night.

Did anyone see Deandre Miller out there last night? I did not, which greatly concerns me that he's hurt. If Scooby is out into conference season, no Ippolitto and no Miller.......we are woefully thin at LB. Aside from Turituri and Matthews, I saw a ton of RJ Morgan, Sir Thomas and Gregory out there last night. That feels like 2012 all over again.

Miller was out there. He was credited with 6.5 tackles and 1 TFL.

http://www.arizonawildcats.com/pdf9/377 ... M_ID=30700

I think Miller was the only Linebacker that didn't get sub for an injury last night.

I definitely noticed Miller out there, but those stats are still somewhat surprising.

Then again, the announcers were not at all interested in telling us who did what on which play when it came to defense. We went long stretches where they didn't bother to announce who made the tackle or the play. Obviously they too were having some first game snafus.

Holy hell, Miller had 6.5 tackles??? Honest to God I was hunting for him on my tv and couldn't find him, doesn't speak very highly of my abilities.

Chicat wrote:I definitely noticed Miller out there, but those stats are still somewhat surprising.

Then again, the announcers were not at all interested in telling us who did what on which play when it came to defense. We went long stretches where they didn't bother to announce who made the tackle or the play. Obviously they too were having some first game snafus.

The stadium announcer kept saying Devon Brewer was back for Arizona on kickoffs. Pretty sure it was Jared Baker - they are the same number (23).
According to the game book Brewer didn't play. It would be nice if the announcer had some basic knowledge of which players go in on special teams.

Not too long ago we brought in a class of 3 highly rated LBs in Ware, Cobb, and Smothers. Did any of them get a single snap last night at LB?

ChooChooCat wrote:Not too long ago we brought in a class of 3 highly rated LBs in Ware, Cobb, and Smothers. Did any of them get a single snap last night at LB?

I think I saw Smothers in there on defense, not just special teams.

ChooChooCat wrote:Not too long ago we brought in a class of 3 highly rated LBs in Ware, Cobb, and Smothers. Did any of them get a single snap last night at LB?

Cobb Moved to FB
Ware will not dress for away game (which says alot with how thin we are)
Smothers...maybe?

BMalo wrote:

UAtrue wrote:
By the time the conference games begin we start playing more to our abilities so I'm not worried at this point.

Something to be said about our cupcake OOC schedule; allows us to get these wins without being fully prepared to play. I'll never forget that Penn State fiasco.

Agreed. I'm a huge opponent of our weak OOC scheduling, however, I completely understand why RR and GB like it. We would've been waxed by most P5 schools last night.

RR and GB had nothing to do with this schedule. This was Stoops and Livengood and this is the last season that Arizona is playing the OOC schedules they arranged, I believe. They did home and homes with UNLV and Nevada, a 2 for 1 with UTSA, and RR's first game was the last game of a 2 for 1 they scheduled with Toledo. They've been working on beefing up the OOC, but as Byrne said the other day on Twitter, schools are demanding a lot to get a home and home. If you think the first game of the year should be a tune-up, then you're not going to be too thrilled with next year's opener...

You'd think the power conference home and home would be MORE desirable due to the effect a win would have on one's prospective playoff metrics.

whatever, most teams are pussies, I guess.

azpenguin wrote:

BMalo wrote:

UAtrue wrote:
By the time the conference games begin we start playing more to our abilities so I'm not worried at this point.

Something to be said about our cupcake OOC schedule; allows us to get these wins without being fully prepared to play. I'll never forget that Penn State fiasco.

Agreed. I'm a huge opponent of our weak OOC scheduling, however, I completely understand why RR and GB like it. We would've been waxed by most P5 schools last night.

RR and GB had nothing to do with this schedule. This was Stoops and Livengood and this is the last season that Arizona is playing the OOC schedules they arranged, I believe. They did home and homes with UNLV and Nevada, a 2 for 1 with UTSA, and RR's first game was the last game of a 2 for 1 they scheduled with Toledo. They've been working on beefing up the OOC, but as Byrne said the other day on Twitter, schools are demanding a lot to get a home and home. If you think the first game of the year should be a tune-up, then you're not going to be too thrilled with next year's opener...

That is why I said 5-10 years. In fact, I think it was worse w/Stoops. We needed those first few games just to get our sh*t together in prep for the conference games. It was magnified in the bowl games; it seems like the bowl game is the start of a whole new season for our team. I recall our getting our asses handed to us in at least a few of Stoops' bowl games.

I'm still an advocate of playing at least one or two competitive FBS teams for OOC, but I'm starting to think maybe the pansy schedules we set up are a necessity.

Next year, we got one. But, it probably would've been smarter to play Grambling before BYU. They just took out Nebraska (although Neb is in a "rebuilding mode"). The order of games, I'm guessing is a factor of any things of which I have no clue and playing BYU first was unavoidable.

Panic? This is the win big year.

HaCats wrote:Did anyone see Deandre Miller out there last night?

azgreg wrote:

HaCats wrote:Did anyone see Deandre Miller out there last night?

I noticed him and he had a really good game all things considering. Solid tackler, and didn't blow to many assignments. He's still raw as far as game experience, but a load of potential. Could be the answer to the middle next year