Arizona Football struggles go deeper than surface level

There’s no doubt the contributors at Zona Zealots have taken a ton of heat for siding with Tate a bit, and not just simply blaming the quarterback alone for Arizona’s issues and losses. We feel that the issues go far deeper than that, and that Tate’s struggles aren’t simply that Tate is not a good quarterback.

It’s also worth noting, that we don’t prefer one QB over the other, we back all of our QB’s, we just feel that there is more to winning and losing than one position and we agree with Trippe that the coaching staff wasn’t prepared or hasn’t adjusted to get the best out of a former Heisman Trophy candidate in Tate. How do you screw that up?

The program benefited greatly off of the great play of Tate coached by Rodriguez, and he wasn’t let go because of his record, so why not just capitalize on what was implemented? It wasn’t and many players transferred out of the program as well when they saw the writing on the wall. Most notably, Michael Eletise, who should have started all of 2018, is now happy in Hawaii. Nathan Eldridge is now happy at Oregon State.

Let’s just say that Tate starts against Oregon. He will be pulled in the third series if the struggles continue, especially against one of the best defenses, and he will not be given a chance to get in the groove. That just doesn’t seem right.

Or let’s say they start Gunnell, and Oregon is just too much for the offense, will they stick Tate in there and will he struggle, but maybe not have the same issues? Who do you think folks will blame? We feel compassion for whatever QB is playing against Oregon and Utah, because there is so much pressure, especially on just one player on a team managed by a ton of coaches.

If the defense was able to hold opponents in the last several games to under 30 points, Arizona may have won a couple more games, and the discussion would be completely different. But Arizona has a brand new Defensive Coordinator in Wildcat legend Chuck Cecil, who wants nothing more than to win the next three games and see an improvement in his defense.

It would be unfair to expect too much this season, and frankly, we are a little surprised that most of the discussion surrounding Arizona is which DC we need to hire for next season. Why not give Cecil a whole year to prove himself? HE IS AN ARIZONA FOOTBALL HERO! Why toss him out so quickly? Shocking actually, considering we should be talking about what he could do given a year at least to prove himself?

With the decisions made this season, the future recruiting efforts will be difficult as players help recruit players. How do they recruit well with unhappy players along with glaringly obvious non-support and poor development of the QB that got all those seats sold in 2018? How easily folks throw players under the bus is astonishing.

Consider this: Arizona Wildcats fans and coaches should have been doing everything possible to highlight the skills, while also developing a player like Tate get drafted into the NFL.

Folks want Arizona to recruit top players? Well, you need to be able to get your players into the NFL. What player wouldn’t want to play for an organization that supports them and helps them get to the next level in the NFL? Isn’t that why USC, Oregon, Washington, and UCLA get a ton of four and five-star players, even if they aren’t winning championships? THINK ABOUT IT!

Not one of the players wants to lose the game, but they do need someone to pump them up! Remember “All 60 minutes”? That kind of worked under the Rodriguez era, as Arizona came back to beat Cal in the last seconds of the Hill Mary game, going down as one of the best comebacks and game in Arizona Football history. That is something Rodriguez was able to do. He loved the game and hated to lose and you saw it every minute of every game, maximizing the talent he had to win.