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Arizona Football linebackers need valuable experience in 2020

By Eric Townsend

PALO ALTO, CA - OCTOBER 03: A detailed view of an Arizona Wildcats players helmet sitting on the field during pregame warm ups prior to playing the Stanford Cardinal in a NCAA football game at Stanford Stadium on October 3, 2015 in Palo Alto, California. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
PALO ALTO, CA - OCTOBER 03: A detailed view of an Arizona Wildcats players helmet sitting on the field during pregame warm ups prior to playing the Stanford Cardinal in a NCAA football game at Stanford Stadium on October 3, 2015 in Palo Alto, California. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images) /
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As the Arizona Football team still battles whether or not they will play in 2020, what’s left of our linebackers could stand to gain invaluable experience this year.

It has been a rather unfortunate off-season for the Arizona Football team, and I am not speaking specifically to Covid postponing the chance of having any kind of season to this point.

No, in fact, we should all unfortunately be far too familiar with the transfer portal that has virtually depleted this defensive group of any kind of talent it had, particularly at linebacker. But why?

Arizona Wildcats
Arizona Wildcats /

Arizona Wildcats

Maybe it was Covid cancelling the season, or switching defensive schemes, or a regression of the program, or perhaps it was a combination of any of those things, regardless Arizona is going to have a tough time here to recovering from their losses.

However, here may be a hot take. I feel like the defense was likely to not be much improved this year anyways, so why stress about the players leaving?

Because they were going to make Arizona better? News flash, those same guys were here the past three seasons, and this group was still ranked near the bottom each of the last three years.

Our biggest concern moving forward shouldn’t be talent, it should be depth. And with Arizona likely running a 3-4 if a season happens, with what they currently have at linebacker, that may be tough.

Perhaps they use walk-ons to fill that void too? However, just having a season would be invaluable to the linebackers that we do have, especially moving into 2021 and beyond. And for the record, I do like what Arizona has, it’s just not many bodies.

I mean, look at it this way… If Arizona doesn’t have a season in 2020, we’re going to be in the same boat next year, where the Wildcats will still need to break in a bunch of inexperienced players. With a potentially shorter season, at least we don’t have to suffer long as fans, and can use that shortened time to get guys like Eddie Siamau-Sanitoa (assuming he moves back to linebacker), Jalen Harris, Derrion Clark, Derrick Mourning and Kwabena Watson more playing time.

Or maybe Defensive Coordinator Paul Rhoads switches to a 4-3 last minute, and that at least alleviate the depth issues at linebacker a little bit.

More. On Arizona Football. light

At Zona Zealots, we are curious to see what happens moving forward. As always, Bear Down, Arizona!

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