Arizona Wildcats College Football Preview 2021: What Will Happen, Season Prediction
Kevin Sumlin should’ve worked.
When things were rocking and rolling at Texas A&M, go ahead and credit him and Johnny Manziel for being the ahead of the curve as they took the defense-and-running-game SEC and shot it into the modern age of offense.
Not that the Pac-12 doesn’t play D, but Sumlin’s offensive style should’ve been a problem for the conference, and it just wasn’t. Throw in the totally absent defense, and now we have the beginning of the Jedd Fisch era.
Things are about to be different in Tucson. Fisch brings the high-end offensive mind with an NFL background and resumé to build an attack that can hang punch for punch with anyone in the league – but all that was why Sumlin’s offense should’ve succeeded. There’s one big difference.
There appears to be a big push to make Arizona good at defense again.
Set The Arizona Wildcats Regular Season Win Total At … 3
No football coach will ever say he doesn’t care about defense, but the last two head men – Sumlin and Rich Rodriguez – were just a wee bit more interested in making sure the other side of the ball worked.
It’s going to take a while, and it’s going to be rough before the transformation kicks in, but Fisch getting former Michigan defensive coordinator Don Brown to be his guy was a very, very big step.
But about that pain and suffering before getting good again …
The Pac-12 is loaded, not playing Oregon State and Stanford – instead of, say, Oregon and Washington – hurts, and the most winnable-looking conference games – Colorado and Washington State – are on the road.
It would’ve been nice to have more paycheck non-conference games like Northern Arizona, too.
BYU and San Diego State aren’t the teams you want to face when totally rebuilding a program, especially when the Pac-12 season kicks off in Eugene against the Ducks.
But after Arizona went winless last year to complete a run of 12 straight losses to end the Sumlin era – crashing with a total thud of a 70-7 loss to Arizona State – as long as the Wildcats start to look like things are starting to improve, that will be enough.
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– What You Need To Know: Offense | Defense
– Top Players | Keys To The Season
– Arizona Football Schedule Analysis