Coach Yates enters his second year as the defensive coordinator with lots to prove and an inexperienced group of players to work with. At the same time, he switches from coaching linebackers to cornerbacks. Yates is going to have his hands full this year.
The easiest part of Yates' job should be transitioning to coaching corners. It is what he has done most of his career. For the first 10 years of his career, before he was promoted to a defensive coordinator, Yates was a secondary or cornerbacks coach. His tasked is made easier because Yates will have both starting corners returning from last year.
Outside of football, when we hired Yates he was still dealing with the fallout and lawsuits from a failed used car dealership he used to own in Boise. I can't tell if the problems from these business deals are behind Yates, but at least they should be more under control and not as big of an issue. Also, I don't believe Yates has opened any used car lots in Tucson and has decided to keep his focus on football.
Yates' biggest challenge will be improving a defense that ranked 115th in total defense giving up 6.1 yards per play and 469.3 yards per game. We have a lot of improvement to do just to become an average defense.
I am in the "I'll believe it when I see it" mode for the Arizona defense. If you do want some encouragement, here is a quote from Isaiah Hayes on the defenses' progress during spring ball given to Shereen Rayan at Zona Zealots,
42 is the Arizona record for the most consecutive games catching a pass accomplished by both Dennis Northcutt (Oregon St 96 to AssU 99) and Bobby Wade (Stanford 99 to AssU 02). Wade did miss one game due to injury, but think about it, for over 6 years Northcutt or Wade caught a pass in every Arizona game except the one Wade missed for injury.“You could just tell in Spring Practice the way we were just bonding as a defense, and communicating on defense and how simple and smooth things were going. You could tell how comfortable we are getting with Yates and the defensive team. And not only Yates, coach Addae, all the defensive coaches. Coach Amey, coach DiAngelo every single coach out there is just doing their job and working with certain positions. And once we all come together as a defense and one unit, it’s like music. You know we are all out there doing the best we can; moving to the ball, we’re communicating, we are calling things out before they happen it’s just you can tell the difference.”
