Banda is a 6-3, 247, Redshirt Senior from Grayson, GA. He has come on strong since his redshirt Freshman year (Banda only saw the field once that year), by playing in every game over the past 2 years (with an unknown number of starts because our football SID didn't think that was not an important stat to track last year). Last year Banda had 14 tackles (3 for a loss) and 2 sacks.
Banda should once again be a key part of the defensive line rotation and will be competing for a starting role if we decide to track that this year.
Eight Wildcat jerseys have been retired and I will include those players in the countdown starting with the best defensive tackle in the school's history - Rob Waldrop.
Here is the release from the official site on Waldrop's Hall of Fame induction:
NEW YORK -- Former Arizona All-American Rob Waldrop has been selected to the 2011 College Football Hall of Fame Class, announced today by the National Football Foundation and its Board of Directors.
Waldrop was picked from the national ballot of 88 candidates and a pool of hundreds of eligible nominees, announced today in presenting the Football Bowl Subdivision HOF class.
Waldrop joins fellow Arizona College Football Hall of Fame inductees Chuck Cecil (2009), Ricky Hunley (1998), and Jim Young (1999) in this exclusive territory. With just over 1,000 individuals in the Hall of Fame, only one percent of those who have ever played college football have been deemed worthy of this distinction.
A two-time consensus All-American during his junior and senior seasons, Waldrop was the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year, received the Outland Trophy honoring the country's top interior lineman, was voted the Top Defensive Player of the Year by the Football Writers of America (now called the Bronko Nagurski award), and was one of four finalists for the Lombardi / Rotary award honoring the outstanding lineman of the year.
During his senior season, Waldrop recorded 53 total tackles, 14 for losses, including eight sacks --a remarkable feat for an interior lineman. His play, which helped spawn the Wildcats' "Desert Swarm" nickname, was evident in the 1994 Fiesta Bowl when he helped pin Miami with its back to the goal, guiding Arizona to a 29-0 victory.
Waldrop was drafted in `94 by the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs and later went on to have a successful stint with the Toronto Argonauts in the Canadian Football League.
