Arizona Wildcats Tight End Position is Alive Again
It’s been a long drought for Arizona Wildcats Tight Ends as they had not caught a pass all of last season despite the fact that they were four deep on the position. Is the drought over?
Just like California and the West Coast is in much need of rain, Arizona Wildcats fans were thirsty for some new offensive plays involving the TE position. Fans are always looking for our offense to change it up a bit and keep the defense guessing.
Arizona Wildcats
One of the most famous, or shall we say infamous Wildcats in currently playing in the NFL now is two-time Superbowl Champion and New England Patriot Rob Gronkowski. Gronk is the No. 1 tight end in the NFL drafted in his position in all five of the fantasy football pools in which I am involved. I would venture to guess that he’s the most well-known tight end of his era.
Last season in March 2015 Roberto Payne, a sports writer for the Daily Wildcat, asked Coach Rich Rod about the tight ends on his team,“I think Josh is ready now to fully play at that position. Then you’ve got Trevor Wood and Darrell Cloy [Jr.] and Matt Morin. There are at least four guys there that will get a lot of reps. That’s going to be fun to see what we can do with them.”
Coach Rodriguez went on to explain that the offseason would be imperative and that it would be a lot of fun having depth at the position.
Since then, sophomore Trevor Wood suffered a shoulder injury in preseason camp and he is unfortunately out for the 2015 season. Wood has already successfully undergone surgery to repair his shoulder as earlier reported by Zona Zealots a week ago; a big loss to the program.
Insert Wildcat redshirt freshman tight end and former quarterback Josh Kern, who is 6-foot-5 and weighs 229 pounds. On the first play of the second Arizona drive in the second quarter, Anu Solomon’s pass was complete to Kern for 11 yards to the Arizona 41, FIRST DOWN ARIZONA (Wildcat growl!)
The drought was over!
On the first play of the first drive of the third quarter (I see a pattern here), Anu connected with Kern for the second time for 1 yard to the Arizona 26 yard line, Kern ran out-of-bounds.
Earlier this week I asked my favorite football coach in the whole world, Rich Rodriguez, more about the topic and much to the moderators delight a tight end discussion. I explained that Arizona fans noticed that Josh Kern had caught two passes in the UTSA game and were excited. Then I asked him if he was going to plan on using tight ends more in the offense this season.
Nov 28, 2014; Tucson, AZ, USA; Arizona Wildcats head coach Rich Rodriguez reacts against the Arizona State Sun Devils during the 88th annual territorial cup at Arizona Stadium. The Wildcats defeated the Sun Devils 42-35 to win the Pac-12 south title. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
“Seems like that’s always a universal thing across the country in football, like ‘throw the ball to the tight end, throw the ball to the tight end [laughter]’, I always find that amusing,” he said.
Then he enlightened me on the position in his offense from last season. It seems we may all be wrong! Last year, Arizona TE’s did catch passes, they just were listed in the program as wide receiver/tight end. He continued:
“I guess folks forgot that when Terence Miller caught a lot of passes even though he was a wide receiver playing tight end, he was playing the tight end position two years ago, and Austin Hill did the same thing last year.
I can remember Terence Miller against Oregon caught maybe five or six in the first half playing tight end. So it’s not the first time, but you know I guess if you’re listed in the program as a tight end not wide receiver/tight end it gives us cause for excitement. Yeah, we’ll throw it to him if he’s open,” explained Rodriguez.
In the game Anu passed to six different receivers including two complete passes to a TE:
- Jackson, Johnny 8-101 1-TD 35 -Long
- Jones, Cayleb 3-49 1-TD 34 -Long
- Richards, David 3-31 1-TD 13 -Long
- Phillips, Nate 3-28 1-TD 17 -Long
- Kern, Josh 2-12 11-Long
- Baker, Jared 1-8
Anu’s Totals: 22-229 and four touch downs.
Hopefully, we see more of this in the future as we would hate to go through another drought. Backing up Kern is junior Matt Morin and freshmen Brion Anduze and Darrell Cloy [Jr.] Here’s Josh doing his thing, visiting hospitals with his teammates.
I love it when our Wildcats are going through hospitals and making people less fortunate than them happier for a while!
So let’s keep an eye out for No. 17 bee bopping onto the field, you may not need to hold your breath anymore waiting for his number to be called.