Arizona Football: Grant Gunnell and Gary Brightwell are the real deal

With the 2020 Arizona Football season being postponed, it still didn’t stop Grant Gunnell or Gary Brightwell from receiving preseason honors.

I know it has been a rather hellacious few months, especially if you are an Arizona Football fan. From the season postponement, to numerous transfers, luckily there is some good news, especially as Wildcats Grant Gunnell and Gary Brightwell are getting some much deserved attention this year.

What? How is that even possible if there is no season for 2020?

Arizona Wildcats

Well, even with no season potentially happening in 2020, or even potentially happening in the Spring of 2021, nonetheless the show goes on for most publications.

And if you had been paying attention this off-season, you would have seen that both Gunnell and Brightwell were already receiving some well-deserved praise and notoriety.

Well last week that continued for them, as well-known publication Pro Football Focus (PFF) named their preseason All-Pac-12 teams, and making the second team was both Brightwell and Gunnell.

In case you forgot, Gunnell and Brightwell put together some rather monstrous seasons, despite seeing just limited action.

For Grant, as just a freshman, he appeared in eight games for the Wildcats, throwing for 1,239 yards, nine touchdowns to just one interception on 101 pass completions on 155 attempts. He also was the primary back-up to Khalil Tate.

As for Gary, the running back put up a rather impressive 390 yards rushing on just 66 carries (5.9 average) with five touchdowns. He also had another 59 yards receiving with four catches and a touchdown. Now remember, he did all this while playing behind J.J. Taylor.

So, while both players did what they did while primarily being back-ups, imagine what they can do when they are the true starters? Now you can perhaps see the potential as PFF does!

Also coming up on the third team and honorable mentions for PFF were players like; Lorenzo Burns, Christopher Roland-Wallace, Josh McCauley and Robert Congel.

At Zona Zealots, we’re just happy to see the Wildcats get some well-deserved praise, and hope they can continue to build off that! As always, Bear Down, Arizona!