Pac-12 Media Days: Arizona Coach Rich Rodriguez extremely entertaining

Pac-12 Media Days hit Hollywood and Arizona Football was there to represent.

Arizona Football head coach Rich Rodriguez and his two senior leaders Sani Fuimaono and Nate Phillips came to Hollywood for the Pac-12 Football media days and were first on the docket.

A reticent Rodriguez took the mic first out of all 12 coaches, you might say he is the Spurrier of the Pac-12, or at least the rock star. In any case, he was one of the most entertaining coaches from both days.

Coach Rod opened his comments with the fact that he wasn’t happy being there and would rather still be on vacation, he got a few giggles. His comedic comments did not stop there, at lunchtime he had all the media slapping their collective knees.

During the press conference, Coach Rod kicked off the Q & A uniquely, “Hopefully offensively we can take another step, stay healthy and have some success. With that, we’ll get this knocked out.”

Next: The funny side of Coach Rodriguez

Fun Stuff

If you haven’t been able to enjoy a relaxed conversation or a Pac-12 intimate press conference with Arizona Head Coach Rich Rodriguez, you have missed a lot. This guy is a barrel of laughs! We asked Nate Phillips and Sani Fuimaono at lunch if he is this funny in the locker room and on the field, and they started to laugh and shook their head ‘yes.’ We can only imagine. But we will give you a glimpse into the Rich Rod experience.

More from Zona Zealots

• Arizona Football begins Conference play against Stanford
• Arizona Football starts slow but runs away from UTEP
• How Wildcats Fans Can Claim $200 INSTANT Bonus at BetMGM Betting $10 Right Now
• Costly Mistakes doom Arizona Football in loss to Mississippi State
• Arizona Basketball likely to schedule Florida Atlantic for 2023

We asked Coach Rod about the Code of Conduct rule which now extends to Coaches, “In my younger days, I used to yell a lot, but I guess, one, they can’t hear you, and two, they don’t care what you say anyway. I really don’t yell that much,” he explained, “I get upset if I think it’s a bad call, but most of the time they’re right. The only thing that bothers me is that I don’t think a replay should ever be wrong because they’ve got the benefit of rewinding it. But sometimes they make mistakes, too. But overall they’re usually pretty good.”

Good Answer Coach! Way to stay on the referee’s good side!

On Anu Solomon watching film on Saturday mornings, “Now, we’re still going to call the plays just because I’ve always said we watch more film as coaches than the players do. They might be watching Sponge Bob Square Pants or something, I don’t know…”

A young reporter from SBNation asked Coach Rod if he was playing Pokemon Go, “I had no idea what the hell Pokemon Go was until the other day, and I think my son was telling me, he’s an 18-year-old. But I know there’s a lot of people that are walking around like this [mimics looking down at his phone] and bumping into each other, so it’s kind of dangerous”

More from Wildcats Football

• Arizona Football begins Conference play against Stanford
• Arizona Football starts slow but runs away from UTEP
• How Wildcats Fans Can Claim $200 INSTANT Bonus at BetMGM Betting $10 Right Now
• Costly Mistakes doom Arizona Football in loss to Mississippi State
• How can Arizona Football beat Mississippi State on the road?

For those of you shaking your head at our Wildcats playing the game, no worries, UCLA LB Jayon Brown confirmed to us that the Bruin football players are also Pokemon Go crazy.

As far as what his wife will be doing all alone in the box next year when her son is dressed in an Arizona football uniform playing, or her daughter is on the sideline cheering for the team, Rich Rod’s response was classic, “I guess she’ll be making more dip.”

ZonaZealots asked Rodriguez if was happy about having a bye week in the middle of the season, “Well, we have an open date this year. How about that? So the next time we will not have an open date is in 12 years, so that will be the next poor coach’s problem, not mine. Toes in the water, butt in the sand is where I’ll be, or somewhere like that.”

Think he’s planning on retiring in the next 12 years? One thing we do know, if he tweets out an announcement he’s leaving it won’t include any emoji’s.

You don’t see emoji’s in Rich Rod’s tweets and he explained it was because he just found out why you would use them. He didn’t realize you could convey a message with emoji’s and not until Nate and Sani showed him did he understand. “I’m not an emoji sender type of guy. If I send a recruit a happy face, they’ll think, ‘this guy is kind of weird!”

Keep it coming coach, keep it coming.

Next: Rich Rod and his Quarterback situation

Quarterbacks

Coach Rod is definitely leaving the door wide open when it comes to quarterbacks, seeing benefits to each of this QB’s, “We have in my opinion two returning starters. One that’s more established in Anu Solomon, really good player…He’s got a challenge with Brandon Dawkins.”

More from Wildcats Football

• Arizona Football begins Conference play against Stanford
• Arizona Football starts slow but runs away from UTEP
• How Wildcats Fans Can Claim $200 INSTANT Bonus at BetMGM Betting $10 Right Now
• Costly Mistakes doom Arizona Football in loss to Mississippi State
• How can Arizona Football beat Mississippi State on the road?

Rich Rodriguez has a quarterback philosophy which may not be what you would expect, “I’m not typical where I think you’ve got to name a starter. We treat the quarterback position pretty much like the rest of them. Just compete and play the best guy at the time.”

He’s not the only coach to talk about QB Battles, on Thursday, USC Coach Clay Helton, Cal Coach Sonny Dykes, and Utah Coach Kyle Whittingham all spoke about their QB competitions. On Friday, Stanford head coach David Shaw confirmed he’s taking the same approach as Rich Rod. Too many quarterbacks is a good problem to have in the Pac-12. Clearly, each coach wants to keep the other coaches guessing.

We asked Nate Phillips about the QB situation as well. Phillips said he had a few catches with Tate, but mostly working with Anu Solomon and Brandon Dawkins. He sees a lot of potential and enjoys catching with all three quarterbacks.

All quarterbacks will be playing preseason, we predict, but Coach Rod will start with Anu if he wants to play it safe, then go from there, Brandon next, then Khalil will get a chance at some point. As we saw last season, four quarterbacks got a shot if only for one or two plays and depending on the team.

Next: Freshmen

Freshmen Wildcats

As far as incoming freshmen, Rich Rod talked about which young men he was planning on playing this season. Basically, which freshmen was he planning on not red-shirting, “Freshman coming in? There’s a handful,” he said, “I don’t know their names. In fact, I mean, I know their names but I don’t know which ones it will be until August practice starts.”

He did have one name in mind, though, he told Michael Lev a little later in one-on-one interviews that Michael Eletise will start.

As far as Khalil playing as a freshman, it’s a wait and see situation, “Basically, in the spring we just wanted Khalil to learn the base offense, and he got a little bit of that,” Rodriguez said, In August camp he’s going to get reps. It’s not like we’re going to say, Khalil, go to the scout team, redshirt. He’s going to get reps, but he’ll get reps after Brandon and Anu does.”

Coach Rod has advice for all of his freshmen, “We kind of have a different philosophy…I tell the freshmen when we recruit them, we don’t ever promise or guarantee they’ll start…if you are a freshman then don’t take a back seat and say, ‘okay I’ll play second or third year.'”  He continued, “If you’re ready to play physically and mentally, we’ll play them as a true freshman because the last thing I want to do is save them for the next coach.”

Next coach, Huh? [said in a Scooby Doo voice] That was his second ‘next coach’ reference. Maybe if he talks about it, the media won’t bring it up as much. Or, maybe he’s not too confident going into this season.

Here’s a little taste of the press conference:

At lease we know he’s not leaving next season; his son Rhett Rodriguez is committed to play quarterback for his pops, “He ain’t decommitting from Arizona. Not if he wants to eat and be in the will he won’t. Hell, he’s been committed to me for 18 years. He decommitted from West Virginia, he decommitted from Michigan!” Hilarious, he was on his game today even though he seemed he didn’t want to be there at first. As fans and media, we are lucky to have one, of if not the most entertaining, honest and real coaches in the Pac-12.

Hilarious. Coach Rod was on his media game today and even though he didn’t seem to want to be there at first, he warmed up throughout the day.  As fans and media, we are lucky to have one of the most entertaining, honest and real coaches in the Pac-12. Looking forward to next season, may the summer be fruitful and the fall bring us another Pac-12 South title, at the very least.

must read: ZESPY's ZonaZealots version of the ESPY Awards for Arizona Wildcats

When Coach Rod spoke about his 2017 class, he seemed giddy, and there’s a good reason. Arizona’s class of 2017 is ranked somewhere between 6-8 in the nation. For now, Rich Rod feels confident about the future, next season and isn’t listening to the ‘experts’ on ranking his clasee.BearDown Arizona football program!