What does Arizona Football need to do Moving Forward?

Things are not good in Tucson currently, and with big games approaching for Arizona Football in the coming weeks, it may be time to sound the alarms.

Arizona isn’t going to a bowl game. There I said it, and now it is time for fans to come to grips with it and move on.

How, you ask, could things be any worse in year five of head coach Rich Rodriguez’s tenure at Arizona? That is certainly what bad recruiting and bad luck with injuries can do.

As you are seeing, Arizona has been outmatched (physically and athletically), and out coached these past couple games. Chalk it up to bad luck if you will, but how have things gotten so bad? We’re relying on undersized guys at some positions.

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Following the injury to Brandon Dawkins last night, Rodriguez went with the walk-on Zach Werlinger hoping to find some answers. Perhaps not surprising, no answers were found.

Then came the long anticipated entry of Southern California native, Khalil Tate, albeit maybe a bit earlier than expected. Many Cats fans’ assumptions were proven correct when the young Tate dazzled anyone watching with his superior athleticism.

However, the cost is that now Arizona and Rodriguez have burned his redshirt. So the question is, what do the Wildcats decide to do moving forward?

Perhaps not so easy or obvious, but to me, the choice seems obvious. Time to move on with the future.

Changes have been made to the Wildcats staff that seem to have paid off so far, now time to make some more.

First off, Tate needs to be the starter for the rest of the year. You don’t burn his redshirt to have him sit on the bench, let him take his lumps. Mainly because I don’t see Arizona making a bowl game this season. Might as well start building towards next year.

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has regressed since his freshman year, nor can he stay healthy for an entire season. To me, his career here is over. Dawkins has been a pleasant surprise this year, but Arizona’s eyes have to be to the future, no offense to Dawkins, but Tate seemingly has the higher ceiling.

Khalil is the future, and possibly, so is Braxton Burmeister. Braxton is the four-star dual-threat quarterback from the California Interscholastic Federation San Diego Section (98 schools and not as competitive as others).

Khalil Tate played in the Southern Section (aka the Pac-5, a nationally recognized division) in the CIF in High School and earned HS All-American honors three times.

The Southern Section includes 598 Schools including Coastal and Inland schools except for the LA City schools such as Narbonne (powerhouse). Southern Section schools also play some games against LA City Schools and ranked schools such as Centennial which feed UCLA and USC. So it’s not a shocker Tate plays with so much poise, he played against the most difficult opponents in HS.

It’s hard to keep those talented players on the bench if you’re truly trying to raise the level of play.

You can see how composed this 17-year-old Freshman QB is in this Zach Rosenblatt ADS post game taped video:

In any case, it is time to start moving on with the younger talent. If this is going to be a bit like a rebuilding project, might as well do it with the guys who are going to give you the best chance to win some games, or are going to be big contributors next year.

Special teams play is atrocious, tackling is non-existent, our depth is terrible, the coverage on defense is bad, and we don’t have very many answers for this season.

A lot of credit should be given to new defensive coordinator Marcel Yates for the seemingly masterful job he has done on defense, despite our deficiencies, especially at corner and safety.