The Arizona Football season is officially underway, and with Spring Football starting, the Wildcats are without defensive back coach, Demetrice Martin.
It’s still officially the off-season for the Arizona Football team, and even though it’s been a while since the Wildcats last took the field, they finally returned to action on Monday to kick start the 2020 Football season!
If you’ve been paying attention, it’s been quite a busy few months for the Cats, especially as Arizona has had to make a series of hires to replace Marcel Yates, Iona Uiagalelei, John Rushing, and DeMarco Murray.
Arizona Wildcats
Unfortunately with the return on Spring Football on Monday, we learned that the Wildcats will indeed have to make another.
Make the rounds via social media on Monday afternoon, was the news of defensive backs coach Demetrice Martin leaving the team, making the move to go to in-conference rival, the Colorado Buffaloes.
The last minute change comes off as a bit shocking, especially as many, including ourselves, figured there would likely be no more coaching changes happening at this point. However, with the head coaching change at Colorado within recent weeks, perhaps this shouldn’t be too surprising then.
While the loss certainly hurts, Arizona will still move on just as they always do. However, there is no denying that coach Martin was perceived to be one of the better recruiters on staff, and was one of the few hold overs from the 2019 defensive staff from last season, so that alone makes the loss significant.
Arizona begins spring practice this evening and it is now expected to do so down one coach. The Wildcats will have an entirely new staff on defense in 2020 since Demetrice Martin was the lone holdover from last year’s group. https://t.co/MutJ7fbDa1
— Matt Moreno (@MattRMoreno) March 2, 2020
Which direction the Wildcats decide to go from here is what will be interesting. Defensive Coordinator Paul Rhoads certainly has experience coaching defensive backs and could surely make the transition to the secondary to replace Martin. If he does that, who, if anybody, would he bring into to help coach linebackers alongside Andy Buh?
If not, who would be his intended targets to coach the Arizona secondary?
At this point, it’ll be interesting to see what happens! At Zona Zealots, we’re excited for the return of Arizona Football, and can’t wait to see what happens for 2020. As always, Bear Down, Arizona!