Arizona Football: It’s not the quarterback, there’s so much more to it

In football, the quarterback is always blamed for everything, and with Arizona Football, it’s no different. However, it’ s a short-sighted argument.

Arizona Football is 3-4 overall, 2-2 in the Pac-12, yet some in the media and the Wildcats fan base are in near hysterics over the loss to Utah trying to figure out what’s wrong. Every weekend the announcers focus on the quarterback, and the media writes that everything will be fine, ‘as long as the quarterback is healthy.’ Isn’t that sending out a smoke signal to every opponent to make sure the quarterback is not healthy?

Protecting the quarterback should have been of paramount importance from the start of the season! It was important to help Khalil Tate become a more NFL-type quarterback, but did it have to happen so quickly? Why were there so many changes from last season?

When things don’t go so well in a baseball game, fans tend to blame the pitcher, fair or not. But when you are talking Arizona Football or football at all, the spotlight hits the quarterback..hence the phrase Monday Morning Quarterback (i.e.- the critics).

Both seem to be blamed for everything good or bad depending on the win or loss of a game or a season. Football is a team sport, and all the pieces need to fit together if the puzzle is going to be complete.

Nick Foles playing on the Rams with no O-Line to protect him was looked at as a failure by Foles, but it wasn’t. Foles playing with the NFL Champion Philadelphia Eagles at the end of last season with a strong O-line and chemistry, that worked!

Foles received Most Valuable Player honors at the Super Bowl, but he needed a full effort from the coaching staff and the rest of the team to get the win.

Look, Arizona Football just went through a huge change in coaching staff. Kevin Sumlin and his new staff decided to change everything on the field. The team had great chemistry last season under Rich Rodriguez and won more games than they lost under what we now know as an office full of drama behind-the-scenes.

Never-the-less, the players were playing for the coaches they had committed to play for, and there seemed to be close and tight relationships all around.

So far the coaching staff hasn’t adopted what was suggested in our biased opinion, which was to go back and see what worked last season and try not to change too much. Use much of the talent you have (that was recruited for the spread offense), and make small changes along the way gradually changing the schemes and plays to make a smooth transition.

They could have decided to keep some of what worked well together last season to ideally achieve quicker success.

Instead, they have a quarterback who had to learn a whole new playbook and one in Khalil Tate who brought tons of great vibes and exposure to the program. But then he got injured early in the year and it seemed as if he has been targeted by each team he played against.

Of course, the goal of every team was to prove they could stop him to make a point, but regardless, Arizona has a very young offensive line who can’t seem to protect the quarterback and make holes for the run game. It seems that some players who performed well last year aren’t starters, and although it’s the prerogative of the coaching staff to play their favorites, it doesn’t help the team nor put them in the best position to succ

What is interesting is that even though Tate has been somewhat injured for most of the 2018 season, in six games (he hardly played against Utah), the junior signal caller has passed for 1,415 yards and 11 touchdowns. In comparison, last season Tate threw for a total of 1,591 yards and 14 touchdowns. So as far as passing is concerned, Tate is on target to exceed his passing stats from last season.

I counted the seconds the Utah and USC quarterbacks have to make a decision to pass the ball and to whom from last weekends games. It was about five-seven seconds. For Arizona QB’s, it is roughly two-four seconds.

Utah and USC’s O-Line and D-Line have huge players that form walls for their teammates. Arizona QB’s were sacked five times by Utah’s defense, five times! How do you not get injured from that?

Rich Rodriguez knew that this was the key to his team getting more wins and what he lacked in recruits. Not that he didn’t try, he offered a lot of big guys with five stars, they just didn’t pick Arizona. The new indoor practice facility should help.

Rodriguez held a Polynesian Camp last season and thought it was great, and wanted to put on many more because he knew that it was a great way to recruit the big dudes. He offered Merlin Robertson of Serra Gardena, but the coaching staff rarely if seldom ever contacted him. The Robertson family always wondered why no one was reaching out.

Robertson ended up committing to ASU and he is doing well. His family is Polynesian and they have ties to that community so they could influence other players as well. They were excited Arizona was putting on the Polynesian camp.

Rich is having a difficult time of watching the football games, but he says he has not spoken to Sumlin because it’s his program now.  “There’s no question you watch with a lot of mixed emotions, a lot of mixed feelings,” Rodriguez told Michael Lev. But maybe it could help?

Maybe Sumlin, since Rodriguez is one of his quarterback’s fathers and the former head coach, could reach out and get some tips from Rodriguez. I know he would have to put his pride aside to do it, but it can’t hurt, right?

That said, no quarterback can be effective if they have no time to decide what the best course of action is, especially on a broken play. Last season, senior Jacob Alsadek took no prisoners or excuses, he was going to win games! And last season, he and his crew including Layth Friekh and Michael Eletise did just that. Their QB became a Heisman Trophy Candidate because they learned how to work with his skills and made proper blocks and holes for him to run through.

We are not saying that the players don’t want to win or are not trying, they are, they are busting their butts to win. We are saying that so much has changed, it will take a season for them to adjust, coaches and players.

That is not the case this year. It is unfortunate that experienced center Nathan Eldrige is injured because he and Tate had a great relationship on the field and Tate had could trust him. Remember when Arizona lost their senior center to an accidental death? That season feels a lot like this one.

That’s no knock on the next man up, it’s just that along with a new scheme, the QB has a brand new center.

We are not saying that the players don’t want to win or are not trying, they are, they are busting their butts to win. We are saying that so much has changed, it will take a season or so for them to adjust, coaches and players.

However, the play calling on offense hasn’t seemed to be of much help this season. What’s noticeably different is that Tate isn’t taking off on broken plays and it’s not because his ankle is hurt alone, it’s because he has no room to run. Lateral passes and running up the middle into huge defensive linemen doesn’t work either. Maybe a few trick plays and short passes would help.

Arizona Football fans have called for firings and new quarterbacks and have shot blame in all directions. They had huge expectations, but the fans and the media can only speculate. No one but the team and the coaches know what is really going on behind the scenes and they have done a fabulous job of not spilling the beans.

After Tate went down against Utah, next on the list was Rhett Rodriguez. The true sophomore had himself a game, passing for 226 yards and one touchdown with no interceptions. Admirable.

Rodriguez impressed everyone including his head coach and his father. “I thought he competed pretty well.” After all, he has been groomed for his entire life to play on the big stage. Remember, he worked with his dad on the playbook. It has to be hard for him to not finally be running his dad’s plays he studied for so long. Rhett earned a Freshman Scholar-Athlete of the Year honor last year and is very smart, so learning the plays probably wasn’t the difficult part. We can only imagine.

All along both he and Tate have been seen discussing the game while the defense was on the field. When Rhett went in for Jamarye Joiner against Utah, Tate was rallying the troops on the sideline and continuing to team up with Rhett, even the announcers noticed.

The Fox Sports announcers also pointed out the issue for the Arizona Quarterbacks, there is nowhere to go for the QB. So stop blaming just the QBs. Utah is full of seniors. In 2015, 33 Polynesians were on the Utes roster, six on the defensive line and on the offensive line depth.

None of us know what is truly going on and Rhett let us in on the situation a bit in his post game press conference.

"“It’s definitely been an interesting couple months here,” Rhett Rodriguez said. “It’s been up and down – a lot of highs, a lot of lows. To say that there’s been a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff would be an understatement.“But at the end of the day, I’m just here to do my best, help my team win and just try to be the best player I can be.”"

Something Tate hasn’t said, but you can tell he is doing everything he can to say the right things to the media and not diss his coaches or teammates! Tate will not throw his teammates under the bus, that’s what a leader does. When you see him agitated after a loss, that’s because he just lost a game, and he knows how he could have won the game.

Last season, it seemed that Rich, Rhett, and Khalil talked about plays and Tate was more involved in making a play work. This season, it really looks like he has been told to throw the ball away, much like an NFL quarterback would do. So the premise that Sumlin and Mazzone are trying to groom an NFL quarterback in Tate seems more reasonable.

As far as Mazzone’s first and last season in Tucson and retiring? That rumor comes from Wildcat Authority in their private pages. Another rumor from the same source is that there are other transfers coming. Rumors from the same site about Tate transferring schools which we say is false, he is not transferring, he just needs to get healthy and the O-Line problem needs fixing. But in general, that would happen anyway. Let the rumors die or play out if they must, but let’s support the Wildcats and beat the Bruins!