Friday October 12th

[97cats]

mark it down now

if some things break right early, this friday night fight has a chance to be Kevin Sumlin's national coming out party as the new University of Arizona head coach, and could be the game that could propels Khalil Tate to the top of the Heisman race.

Utes just might be lookin to the Trojans...

[ASUHATER!]

Might actually be the game of the year in the south

[PHXCATS]

mark it down now

if some things break right early, this friday night fight has a chance to be Kevin Sumlin's national coming out party as the new University of Arizona head coach, and could be the game that could propels Khalil Tate to the top of the Heisman race.

Utes just might be lookin to the Trojans...

I agree with almost all of what you are saying but I just disagree with one part. The USC game on 9/29 could be that national coming out party. If U of A and USC are both undefeated that could be the college gameday choice. There are only three other games that it could go to. Penn State and Ohio State but that depends on what happens with Meyer before that. Stanford and Notre Dame but gameday is already going to Notre Dame in September. Tennessee at Georgia and that would depend on how Tennessee is doing and Tennessee will likely have two losses before that to Florida and West Virginia. Really sucks that I will have to miss the USC game this year. Gonna be HUUUGGGGEEE

[97cats]

USC will get him noticed, Tate too, along with BYU and others - even if AZ loses to USC the game at Utah on friday night on ESPN on the road would make a huge splash, particularly with first place potentially on the line, regardless of result against USC - so win or lose early in the year at home against the Trojan, the game at Utah sets up perfect, not to mention it has the potential swing game effect as the winner of that game very likely could win the south with the Trojan visiting Rice-Eccles Stadium the following saturday the 20th.

[PHXCATS]

USC will get him noticed, Tate too, along with BYU and others - even if AZ loses to USC the game at Utah on friday night on ESPN on the road would make a huge splash, particularly with first place potentially on the line, regardless of result against USC - so win or lose early in the year at home against the Trojan, the game at Utah sets up perfect, not to mention it has the potential swing game effect as the winner of that game very likely could win the south with the Trojan visiting Rice-Eccles Stadium the following saturday the 20th.

Very true. Will be interesting to see what happens with the first four games of the year and if U of A and USC can remain unbeaten before that game. Other than Penn State and Ohio State I think that would have the best chance of being the gameday game. But FUCK ESPN except for Gameday and live games.

[azcat49]

I will bring my Sean Miller sign

[ChooChooCat]

Man so much of this will depend on our O-Line.

[catgrad97]

Yes Choo. All of this preseason anticipation is meaningless if Tate isn't protected jealously.

And then he'll still need some help to keep him away from the headhunters once he takes off into open field.

[azpenguin]

I will assure you that Utah will not be looking ahead when Arizona comes to town - they really want a piece of the Cats. But the rest of your point stands. This is where Sumlin is going to either be looking at a potential Pac-12 South run or be looking to try to make a decent bowl game. Beat the Utes and everything is wide open.

[ByJoveByJingle]

Not to derail this thread . . . butttttt let me try to derail the thread:

I’m struggling to square all of this (enjoyable) optimism from everybody in a coach’s first year whose alleged primary characteristic was recruiting . . . with the fact that every single player who will play meaningful minutes was recruited by RichRod who allegedly mailed in recruiting while banging his secretary (or whoever it was) on the way to the mailbox. In the end, I was ready to see RichRod go, but surely we can all see the cognitive dissonance here?

[azgreg]

Not to derail this thread . . . butttttt let me try to derail the thread:

I’m struggling to square all of this (enjoyable) optimism from everybody in a coach’s first year whose alleged primary characteristic was recruiting . . . with the fact that every single player who will play meaningful minutes was recruited by RichRod who allegedly mailed in recruiting while banging his secretary (or whoever it was) on the way to the mailbox. In the end, I was ready to see RichRod go, but surely we can all see the cognitive dissonance here?

Some of my optimism is coming from Sumlin's first years as head coach. In 2005 he went 8-5 with Houston and in 2012 he went 11-2 with A & M, both with the previous coach's recruits.

[ASUHATER!]

Not to derail this thread . . . butttttt let me try to derail the thread:

I’m struggling to square all of this (enjoyable) optimism from everybody in a coach’s first year whose alleged primary characteristic was recruiting . . . with the fact that every single player who will play meaningful minutes was recruited by RichRod who allegedly mailed in recruiting while banging his secretary (or whoever it was) on the way to the mailbox. In the end, I was ready to see RichRod go, but surely we can all see the cognitive dissonance here?

I get what you're saying for sure. I'm not on the "we're going to win 10 games and potentially win the division" bandwagon at all. We're simply not deep enough to sustain that with the awful RR recruiting. But the pieces we do have, if we stay healthy and get a little luck, can give us a 8-5 or maybe even 9-4 type year for sure. We also have the absolute ability to go 4-8 this year as well.

[ByJoveByJingle]

Yeah, that’s the issue. You either have to be cautiously optimistic at best if you think RR did a terrible job recruiting, or if you are all in on a successful season, you have to believe RR’s recruiting actually wasn’t that bad. I’m not sure how you can be convinced we are gonna challenge for a division title and also believe RR didn’t recruit.

[tgrumpy2]

Yeah, that’s the issue. You either have to be cautiously optimistic at best if you think RR did a terrible job recruiting, or if you are all in on a successful season, you have to believe RR’s recruiting actually wasn’t that bad. I’m not sure how you can be convinced we are gonna challenge for a division title and also believe RR didn’t recruit.

I don't think RR recruited that badly on the offensive side of the ball. We sure seemed to be able to score against almost anyone. The most glaring deficiency was the defensive line, not only in recruiting but coaching. I don't think the guy that RR promoted to DL coach was all that great. I still think cautious optimism is a good way to approach the season. There's a lot of "cautious optimism" about an improved defense this year so we'll see.

[OSUCat]

Why am I optimistic of Sumlin doing well with RR recruits even thought I think RR did a bad job recruiting? I will break it up by offense, defense, special teams, and overall coaching.

Offense:
Arizona would likely have another decent offense. RR forgot to recruit back up QBs, quality wrs, and some offensive lineman. I think this is all limiting factor for Sumlin. But, Mazzone offense will protect the team better than RR offense. For example, Tate is guaranteed to be injured in RR offense while Mazzone will likely protect him. Tate will do less RPOs and will be on page with wrs. Speaking of being on the same page, the WRs only having to run a specific route versus having to make reads, which matches better with our talent At wrs.

Defense:
Yates was finally able to get some recruits for defense that have now developed and have significant size. This group would have been improved either way. Yates will run a better defense with Sumlin than with RR. RR micro managed everything, Sumlin is just letting the coaches coach. The position coaches are improvements and there is more focus on coaching up players than under RR. I expect big jump in opponent 3rd down conversion percentage.

Special Teams:
RR had nothing but distain for special teams and I doubt Arizona gets Klumph under RR. Klumph can potentially add 8 yards on average per punt and might end the 0-15 yard punt that would occasionally happen under RR. The talk from fall camp is that Special Teams are being focused on with specific drills instead of the do your own thing RR did. Arizona couldn’t pin anyone back, but with Klumph Arizona can actually when the field position battles.

Coaching:
Mike Stoops and RR in game antics are about the same. You could clearly see RR screaming over and over at players and they walk by him not even engaging him. I dislike coaches that do that all the time. Sumlin has been the opposite, more laid back and supportive. RR wasn’t the best manager of time and would love to run up the middle for no yards. Oh and how about big games? How many national televised games did RR team just come out flat and get stomped? Sumlin has only 1 losing season in all his years as a head coach even in the SEC (image RR being hired by Alabama and where they would be now haha).

I’m not positive Arizona can win 10 games, but I do think Arizona should be able to get to USC undefeated and The stadium will be rocking. If Arizona pulls the upset maybe they an go 10-2, maybe not. I’m guessing 9 wins but that has to do with scheduling and UCLA having a down year.

[ByJoveByJingle]

So what I get from that is RR basically recruited pretty well except for punters.

Look, I’m not an RR guy, but there is a lot of logical fallacy in play here. Personally, I’m cautiously optimistic because the OKG recruiting level Arizona seems to be stuck with usually means in any 5 year cycle there will be 1 or 2 down years when things don’t break right, 1 or 2 lower tier bowl years which is our median level, and 1 lightning in a bottle year. The last one was 2 Star Scoob. This one hopefully is the QB Heisman candidate that nobody else wanted at QB. But this could just as easily be another New Mexico Bowl kind of year, especially if Tate gets injured or hasn’t progressed as a pocket QB.

[azcat49]

One thing that just struck me is that the top 3 teams in the south all play each other in a very short period at the end of September/early October? I think by the 12th of October all the games between these 3 will have been played. The team that can come out of that 2-0 will be cruising

[prh]

One thing that just struck me is that the top 3 teams in the south all play each other in a very short period at the end of September/early October? I think by the 12th of October all the games between these 3 will have been played. The team that can come out of that 2-0 will be cruising

Utah hosts USC October 20, but yeah, at that point, we'll know who's in the driver's seat.

[Alieberman]

Not to derail this thread . . . butttttt let me try to derail the thread:

I’m struggling to square all of this (enjoyable) optimism from everybody in a coach’s first year whose alleged primary characteristic was recruiting . . . with the fact that every single player who will play meaningful minutes was recruited by RichRod who allegedly mailed in recruiting while banging his secretary (or whoever it was) on the way to the mailbox. In the end, I was ready to see RichRod go, but surely we can all see the cognitive dissonance here?

This is the time of the year when every fan of every team is allowed to think that they have a legitimate shot of going undefeated.

[ByJoveByJingle]

Not to derail this thread . . . butttttt let me try to derail the thread:

I’m struggling to square all of this (enjoyable) optimism from everybody in a coach’s first year whose alleged primary characteristic was recruiting . . . with the fact that every single player who will play meaningful minutes was recruited by RichRod who allegedly mailed in recruiting while banging his secretary (or whoever it was) on the way to the mailbox. In the end, I was ready to see RichRod go, but surely we can all see the cognitive dissonance here?

This is the time of the year when every fan of every team is allowed to think that they have a legitimate shot of going undefeated.

All for it. It’s just hard to go undefeated with a bunch of shit players recruited by a shit coach. Thankfully that’s not the case for this team. I’m optimistic we go 9-3.

[ByJoveByJingle]

Well, now we know which part of the cognitive dissonance equation was causing the problem. People who said Rodriguez wasn’t recruiting were right. This is the worst group of athletes at Arizona since Mackovic. And to make matters worse, as bad of a recruiter as RR was, he was equally magical as an O-coordinator. Because he got the team to score points no matter who was lining up where. And there were some dogs at QB through the years. Gonna be a rough, rough year.