Arizona Safety Scottie Young Jr. snubbed as Pac-12 Defensive POW
The weekly Pac-12 awards have come out and despite the strong performance of Arizona Safety Scottie Young, Jr., it just wasn’t enough.
He’s back and better than last season! It’s been a long journey for Arizona Safety, Scottie Young, Jr. who has had to battle to get back to his 2017 form.
Now a sophomore, the Southern California native and former Helix High School standout is back with the Wildcats and that’s a good thing!
Arizona Wildcats
Arizona’s defense has seemingly been getting better week-by-week, and we can’t help but cite Scottie’s return as to why things have been getting better as of recent. As the offense continued to struggle last week against Cal, it was the defense that came through to deliver the win!
The Wildcats surrendered 476 yards of offense, but held the Golden Bears to just 17 points, and also forced four turnovers, two of them coming from Scottie. In Arizona’s thrilling 24-17 victory, Young finished with seven tackles (five solo) and two interceptions (one going for the Winning touchdown).
His performance was crucial in Arizona’s win, and it was unmistakable he had arguably the best defensive showing from any Arizona player on Saturday!
Well, hopefully the conference would agree too! On Monday, the Pac-12 came out with its weekly awards. On the list, were a string of talented players, but missing was Young.
Instead was Utah defensive back, Jaylon Johnson, who was named the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week. Johnson finished with seven tackles (six solo) and one interception that went 100 yards for a touchdown in their win against Stanford.
Impressive game no doubt, but if the deciding factor was the length of the touchdown, that’s a pretty silly way of measuring it. Young had two crucial interceptions, with the pick-six ultimately sealing the victory.
We may be a bit biased, but we feel it should have gone to Young as he was snubbed from the weekly honor. He was nominated to potentially receive the award.
J.J. Taylor is still the only Arizona player to have been named a Pac-12 Player of the Week this year. Taylor was named the Offensive player of the week in week four, after the Wildcats dispatched Oregon State.
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At Zona Zealots we would like to congratulate Scottie on the tremendous game and regardless of what the conference felt, we know who the real player of the week was! Bear Down, Arizona!