Arizona Football: Is the recruiting and perception worse than we thought?

With just a week until Signing Day, it seems like even with the recent hires for Arizona Football, the recruiting is still struggling.

In the event you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple years, things have not been great for the Arizona Football program.

Just how bad have thing been? Well, the program turned in back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since 2004-05, and missed bowl games in consecutive seasons for the first time since the 2006-07 seasons.

Arizona Wildcats

Since hiring Kevin Sumlin, the team/ program has seemingly looked much like their coaching staff; lost, aloof, unprepared and over-matched in every way. Their 9-15 record over the last two seasons a clear indication of that.

Even worse has been the recruiting, which currently ranks 62nd nationally.

Well needing some kind of spark or change to the program, Sumlin got rid of a few assistants, making some much needed hires in Paul Rhoads, Stan Eggen and Andy Buh.

While I’m not knocking the hires, I think these have actually been good personnel decisions, I do however think they were made two years too late.

As you may recall, players vouched for Marcel Yates from the beginning, which seemed to hand cuff this program for the past two years, ultimately resulting in awful on-field performances.

So to recap, Sumlin decided to fire Yates about half way through last season and we didn’t get a replacement until about two months after. We also didn’t hire Eggen and Buh until about 2-3 weeks after that!

So what’s the issue I have with all this? My major gripe has been the apparent lack of urgency by Sumlin essentially.

As it stands, we’re only a few weeks until National Signing Day, and Arizona is playing behind on a number of recruiting battles.

To note, Rhoads came from 4-8 UCLA, while Eggen came from 2-10 New Mexico who fired their coach, while Buh came from 2-10 Rutgers that also fired their head coach. It’s not like we were waiting on these coaches to finish a bowl game, so why did we wait so long?

To make the right hire? Sure, but the recruiting losses were exactly what I feared.

It’s worth noting that the recruiting has been lackluster to say the least. And with so many recruiting needs, missing out on some key positions because we sat on our hands to hire a defensive coordinator late in the process that was on a team that finished 4-8, is purely bad optics.

Even given the immediate impact guys needed, you would think the Wildcats would be in a great position to possibly land a few Junior College commitments based upon the opportunity for immediate playing time. But alas, that did not materialize.

So as Arizona has missed on a few recruits, that results of the program on the field and in recruiting is worrisome to say the least. To me, that says either Arizona’s recruiting pitch isn’t very good, or no one is willing to come here when there’s the possibility this coaching staff may not be here in a year.

If it is the latter, outside of Arizona making a bowl game next year, I don’t know how much of a difference these coaches will make in recruiting and why didn’t Athletic Director Dave Heeke fight harder to try and move on from the Sumlin era?

Either way, Arizona Football is in a bad way, and the optics are not good. Hopefully we’re proven wrong. As always, Bear Down, Arizona!