Arizona Football: Issues on offense seem to stem from a very young O-Line

This is the first time since 1981 that Arizona Football started the season 0-2, but all wasn’t lost for the 1981 team who ended the season with a winning record.

As excruciating as it was to watch the game on Saturday against Houston, I took a moment to step back and try to read between the lines after listening to the Arizona Football post-game press conferences.

Look, no good leader is going to throw their team under the bus or tell you all the dirt about what was going on behind the scenes. That goes for two men who are under the microscope right now: Arizona football quarterback Khalil Tate and his head coach Kevin Sumlin. So what may really be going on and why is the team struggling to score even though they have done well in that they have allowed a sack in two games?

My husband, who does not watch many sports, watches Tate. He noticed that Tate didn’t have time to throw the ball, “Wow,” he said, “It looks like a couple of years ago when he first started playing, he has no time to pass the ball!”

The hubby made a good point; the offensive line had a lot to do with it. Both Sumlin and Tate addressed the young offensive line in press conferences.

Tate referred several times to his offensive line in the post-game press conference. “Growing pains, things are going to happen when you have a new coach, basically we have five players who never have played college football,” explained Tate after the loss to Houston, “They’re new, and they’re young — it’s kinda tough we have a young team.” He feels that the team is one catch, one play away from scoring more.

Arizona Wildcats Football

I have studied Tate through the years starting in high school. He is not going to spill the beans and target a teammate or two or three. He is a leader. He told ZZ what it was like to be a freshman and talked about getting used to the speed of the game. We hear so many times from young college players that the college game is faster than the high school game. That’s why so many freshmen redshirt, blue shirt or grey shirt.

Sumlin confirmed our assumption with a comment during Monday’s press conference talking about Bam, McKenzie Barnes and other true freshman getting reps, “Two weeks ago they were a bit overwhelmed — The comfort of them and the speed of the game, until you’re out there — you think you know, but you really don’t know. Until you’re out there, you really don’t know.”

A huge issue, which is not talked about much, is that it is rough for the team and especially Tate this season because so far they have not played with their seasoned center. Remember when we lost our center a couple of years ago? Zach Hemmila passed on right before the season, bless his soul, and both Tate and Brandon Dawkins had to deal with high snaps and lack of protection that year. The next season Tate had an O-Line had more seasoned hungry players including leader Jacob Alsadek.

This season, Tate’s seasoned center, Nathan Eldridge, has not played in either of the Wildcats first two games. And we haven’t heard if his injury is season-ending or how long he will be out, but his presence is missing. Eldridge protected Tate last season helping him, and the team get yardage and win more games than expected,

Head coach Kevin Sumlin was questioned in Monday’s press conference about how he teaches the O-Line to attack given the results of the Houston game. He answered this way: “You got four new guys, some scholarship, some walk-ons, some freshman,” explained Sumlin, “The issue is to me, from a protection standpoint and playing against one of the better players in the country in Ed Oliver, really I thought interially, I thought the game plan was pretty good to be able to run the ball and protect it. It’s not what we want, we want to be better — there was some improvement in our offensive line.”

Sumlin things Layth Friekh back at left tackle will be a big help, he will also move Donovan Laie to right tackle (a true freshman who was playing the hardest position) and he will add some depth as four defensive linemen played in 100 plays. Laie has been thrown into the fire. The head coach wants to create some rotation and per Tucson.com Bryson Cain and Tshiyombu Lukusa will rotate at right tackle. He felt the young guys battled. Sumlin will also move Cody Creason to left guard. He felt Creason has done everything coaches asked him to do but it better suited at left guard.

Sumlin wants to get his players in the right position, says it comes down to schematics now and that he has to get some negative yardage plays with sacks and turnovers. He also feels confident with Jace Whittaker and Scottie Young hopefully coming back in the next game against Southern Utah.

I think Sumlin and Tate both know that the teams lack of experience on the O-Line is a big reason Tate isn’t able to be productive as much as he would like. But both are proud of the team for not giving up in a game when faced with a huge deficit.

“We lost, but you know, but it’s something that’s big, we kept — fighting back, we didn’t give up,” said Tate. That’s the most important thing: The team cannot give up.

Wildcats fans seem to have jumped to a lot of assumptions and calls for firings because they want their team to win, and win now. But this season started out with injuries and true freshman on the O-Line which resulted in two “growing opportunity” losses. Hopefully changes in positions on the O-Line along with returning players this week will help, and we will be able to see the football we were looking forward too.