Bear Down Wildcats

Because........why not...................

I give them credit for trying to get the fan base excited and on board. Not sure how much it will work (under 50 retweets and 250 likes so far) but you gotta start somewhere.

In my excitement about actually having Wildcat football this year, I screwed up and restarted the countdown a week early. There will be no countdown this week and it will pick up next Monday when we actually hit 19 days until game day.

A lot of things seem different. Recruiting for one as it’s his best class by far IMO

First win of the year and it’s a good one!

Sorry Grant, it's just realistic. I have faith that you'll be a good qb for us, but there's literally nothing around you, especially on defense. And we have a bad coach.

This is the worst defense I can remember, and this going back only a couple of years when Yates had his D ranked about 114th or so. This team should be in the 120's.

Ang's countdown so far has only a very few players on D whose main minutes haven't been on special teams.

Sumlin, like RichRod, just wants to collect their huge buyout by not really working all that hard.

Our defense has been bottom 5 in the country for half a decade. College football this year has been like bad flag football games. I bet we get torched for 50 plus multiple times.

Do we give up more points in 7 games then in any other 11 or 12 game season? I think the defense might surprise, only because I think we have better depth on the line. I think Schooler was experienced but he had tailed off on his production. We might make it up if Jalen has a big year on the outside

Interesting, and not a bad stab at it, for the most part. Here are my comments:

QB: Plummer is a true freshman. He may have a good future, although Hugh Millen's son arrives in the next class. Kevin Doyle opted out, then opted back in, which may not make some (teammates?) happy. But, he's been in Mazzone's offense for a year. And RhettRod knows the offense inside and out. While he's too small, if you don't ask him to throw it 60 yards in the air, he can execute and check you out of a bad play for a quarter or so. At this point, based on experience, I'd go with some combination of Rodriguez and Doyle over Plummer. Also, per Mazzone, they apparently may run some wildcat stuff for Joiner, who played QB in HS.

RB: Wiley may play more at WR, and Frank Brown comes in at RB. Random Note: Gary Brightwell changed his number to zero.

TE: Marshall may be interesting, as sort of a Mark Keel basketball player type going up for jump balls along the sidelines and end zone.

OL: I'd say JC Sam Langi (6-5, 330) and transfer Matthew Stefanski (6-4, 325) would be ahead of true freshmen Josh Baker and Anthony Patt.

DE: I'd put Jalen Cochran (6-4, 270) ahead of Nahe Sulunga.

LB: Maybe this was an attempt at humor, but Rourke Freeburg has to be practice squad fodder. I'd put walk-on Caleb McCrae (6-1, 245) ahead of him. Random thoughts: We're desperate for bodies. At 6-2, 230, Roberto Miranda seems to be eating his way out of being a WR, and he's got a lot of people ahead of him. And his position mate, 6-2, 225 Jalen Johnson (currently suspended), also has good size. WRs aren't particularly known for hitting people, but if they want to find a position and/or get out of the doghouse, I wonder if either would consider a position switch. I assume they both can run, and they might be interesting returning a fumble or pick.

Safety: The JC Mays could be there, otherwise it would likely be the veteran Rhedi Short.

Difficult to see where any improvement on D will come. We're replacing guys who had experience with a lot of green players. And they will be facing offenses that know what they are doing, with no NAU type warm-up game. College offenses have been ahead of D's most of this year already, and that's because offenses need to act, but defenses need to react. Because of this, we're going to see D players out of position or biting too hard on play fakes, especially the first few games.

We have playmakers on O to counter, and expect a lot of high scoring games. Gunnell has great potential, but I'm not sold on Sumlin/Mazzone. Mazzone's playcalling is predictable, and he's running the same stuff he did at ASu a decade ago, and during his time at UCLA. Tate added the element of scrambling and running the ball, and the best play all last year was the called draw for Tate that scored the long TD against Texas Tech. Gunnell has a higher upside than Tate, but that's because of his arm and ability to read the field, not because of Gunnell's running ability. In high scoring games, wins and losses could be predicated on one or two key stops.

Going to be a long season, in my opinion, even with only 7 games.

Can't wait to see a DT playing LB covering a slant because why would we switch to a 4-2-5?

AzCatFan2 wrote:Difficult to see where any improvement on D will come. We're replacing guys who had experience with a lot of green players. And they will be facing offenses that know what they are doing, with no NAU type warm-up game. College offenses have been ahead of D's most of this year already, and that's because offenses need to act, but defenses need to react. Because of this, we're going to see D players out of position or biting too hard on play fakes, especially the first few games.

We have playmakers on O to counter, and expect a lot of high scoring games. Gunnell has great potential, but I'm not sold on Sumlin/Mazzone. Mazzone's playcalling is predictable, and he's running the same stuff he did at ASu a decade ago, and during his time at UCLA. Tate added the element of scrambling and running the ball, and the best play all last year was the called draw for Tate that scored the long TD against Texas Tech. Gunnell has a higher upside than Tate, but that's because of his arm and ability to read the field, not because of Gunnell's running ability. In high scoring games, wins and losses could be predicated on one or two key stops.

Going to be a long season, in my opinion, even with only 7 games.

Great first post, and welcome!

Is there a team on our schedule that could drop 70+ on us?

MacCauley out against Utah. Battle for center between Bailey and Baker. Two other starters are hurt and out right now.

Well Baker is the future center so give him the start. Any good news out of camp Chief?

Hopefully he can pass for 7 touchdowns a game to keep up.