In-state prospect Jason Harris picks Colorado over Arizona

With the recruiting class of 2020 soon approaching its end, the Arizona Wildcats missed out on a big in-state prospect in Jason Harris.

It has been a rough couple of seasons for the Arizona Football team on and off the field. Despite some recent good news for the Wildcats, on Thursday afternoon, the unfortunately received a tough blow with in-state prospect Jason Harris picking another Pac-12 school.

As an Arizona Football fan, you got to learn to take the good with the bad, and over the past couple years, nothing could be further from the truth.

Arizona Wildcats

Inheriting a rather decent squad, the hopes were especially high for incoming head coach, Kevin Sumlin.

Unfortunately, the Cats have stumbled out of the gates falling to 5-7 in year one, only to follow that up with a even more disappointing 4-8 season.

For Sumlin to turn things around, he’s going to have to focus on better coaching and development, as well as recruiting.

So far he’s showing he wants to address the coaching, replacing Marcel Yates with Paul Rhoads, and will soon make personnel decisions with other open spots.

As for recruiting that won’t come easy.

To put it bluntly, Arizona virtually has no football tradition, and is not a historic program by any means either. However, many had hopes that four-star recruit Jason Harris would pick the Wildcats.

Does that name sound familiar? Well it should! Jason is the youngest of the Harris’, and his family has been long-time Arizona supporters as father (Sean) and mother (Cha’Ron) were both standout athletes for the Wildcats. Heck, even Jalen (brother to Jason) is a current standout with the football team.

With all that, it should have almost been a given that Arizona could get a commitment from Jason. Unfortunately that would not happen. On Thursday night at the Under Armour All-American game, the highly-touted Jason made his announcement, officially picking Pac-12 rival Colorado over the Cats.

To say losing Harris to a Pac-12 foe, especially while his family has all played at Arizona is a major disappointment, would be a huge understatement. But that’s what you get when you make bad personnel decisions and take over a month to hire a defensive coordinator.

Will Arizona move on yes, after all Jason is just one player and doesn’t make or break the program. However, there’s no denying that the optics are bad.

Assuming Arizona makes a hire for a defensive line coach, perhaps there is enough time to maybe try and flip him, but I would assume the chances are slim at this point.

At Zona Zealots, we wish Jason the best as he continues to pursue his future endeavors and only hope the Cats can rebound and finish the class strong. As always, Bear Down, Arizona!