EXCLUSIVE: Arizona Football safety Isaiah Hayes says this season feels different

Isaiah Hayes is preparing for next season with his teammates on the Arizona defense. We caught up with him in this exclusive and insightful interview with the pre-Eller sophomore.

The Arizona Football team is working out on their own by sub-teams over the summer, and the chemistry is building as well as the confidence and the desire to win. So says sophomore safety, Isaiah Hayes.

Hayes is a Pre-Eller student who had to fly in the wee hours of the morning after late night games on Saturdays and then attended late Sunday study sessions with his team for each new game plan. Being a Pre-Eller student is hard enough, but trying to maintain a high GPA and pass business calculus in your freshman year while being an active player on the football team, that was not easy.

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?

The Pac-12 schedule for the Wildcats, as Coach Rod will tell you, does no favors for the players serious about both school and play. The team had 6:00 am practices too. “Travelling caught me off guard, you know, getting off planes at 4:00 am, that was bad, and then having to do practice and walkthroughs and all that it was just crazy,” explained Hayes.

“Other than football, that would be another main accomplishment [graduating with a degree from the Eller School of Management],” said Hayes. “My mom was the education and stuff, she took that role, but my dad was there for the football role.”

As far as injuries, Hayes escaped them last season, and I was interested in finding out what his secret was. “Recovery. One thing I have learned was my body over time since I got there on campus in January,” he said, “I’ve learned how to take care of my body more, stretching and Icing and heating. It’s just like it all comes to play. And I have realized how important stretching is to the body and how it keeps your muscles limber and it allows you to move better.”

Isaiah’s mindset is to win, “You know, the team and me through spring, and through these summer workouts, I have seen the team come together as one. And we’re just working as hard as we can, and we are working out harder,” said Hayes, “And I can see the difference, and you can feel the difference in change and energy. Going into the season my mindset we need to  execute, and we need to come together so that we are one of the best defenses in the Pac-12 and we want to continue to keep executing and have fun while doing it .”

Well, it sure sounds like the defense is on the right track.

So how does the team feel about Coach Rod and him being talked about as far as being on the hot seat? This season this football team is entirely made up of Rodriguez recruited players. Hayes had a lot to say about his coach, and we didn’t want to cut anything out because it shows you just how much respect Rodriguez has from his players.

Arizona Wildcats Football

“Coach Rich Rod is a leader himself, all he wants to do is win, he is an amazing coach, he’s an amazing person, and I just love his energy and love being around that environment that he brings,” explained Hayes, “You know he just wants perfection, and he wants greatness out of his players and out of all of us. He just wants us to work our hardest and do what we do, and I understand completely where some of his frustration may come from he just wants to win, he wants to be successful, and that’s what we are hoping to bring to Arizona this year.”

Hayes message to the fans about next season and the hot seat rumor:

“We really don’t pay a lot of mind to it, and we are just focused on getting our work in right now. We are going to go out there and play for our coach. We are going to go out there and silence everybody who is saying that something about our defense and our offense and special teams, etc. Our main goal this year is to go all the way. On Defense, we were a young team, but now we are looking a lot better. I wouldn’t pay a lot of attention to that hot seat rumor at all!”

On Marcel Yates second year…

“You could just tell in Spring Practice the way we were just bonding as a defense, and communicating on defense and how simple and smooth things were going. You could tell how comfortable we are getting with Yates and the defensive team. And not only Yates, coach Addae, all the defensive coaches. Coach Amey, coach DiAngelo every single coach out there is just doing their job and working with certain positions. And once we all come together as a defense and one unit, it’s like music. You know we are all out there doing the best we can; moving to the ball, we’re communicating, we are calling things out before they happen it’s just you can tell the difference.”

Hayes feels all the defensive coaches are doing a great job this season with him and his teammates.

As far as the leaders on defense…

“Demetrius (Flannagan-Fowles) definitely, Dane (Cruikshank) definitely, we have Jace (Whittaker) definitely. Pretty much you know we all try to be leaders out there. We all try to lead our position groups we all try to beat each other and bring each other up. So I wouldn’t consider any one or two leaders I consider us all leaders on the football field as one defense, coming together as one. I consider us all leaders out there.”

Hayes on team chemistry…

“We hang out a lot, and we see each other a lot. We watch movies like recently the DB’s they all went bowling and the safeties and receivers and the quarterbacks all went to Dave and Buster’s. So we are just doing a lot of team bonding and stuff like that right now.”

Hayes lives with Lorenzo Burns, JJ Taylor, and Tristan Cooper who plays a video game non-stop, and so he spends a lot of time with his other friends in his free time. “I like time alone, I just like talking to my family on the phone, and I like movies. Demetrius, Sammy, Malcolm and Kwesi Mashack, I like going to their house — They are my closest friends, talking to all of them brings peace to my mind.”

“Sammy’s an amazing person and one of my best friends, I just love that guy,” said Hayes.

As far as eateries, Isaiah loves the Waffle House, and Illegal Pete’s the most, but he loves bruschetta, so I pointed him to Pasco Kitchen and Lounge on University.

Here are Isaiah’s high school highlights:

Must Read: More on Arizona Football from ZZ's..

We want to thank Isaiah for his time and for sharing himself with Wildcats fans and giving us such great insight into how our Arizona Wildcats defensive team is operating as one unit with winning on their brains. Bear Down!