Arizona Football: DC Paul Rhoads says Arizona will play a ‘3-4’

With the Arizona Football team prepping for the upcoming season, Defensive Coordinator Paul Rhoads says the Wildcats will play a ‘3-4’ Defense.

It is the middle of October in 2020, which means Arizona Football is just beginning their preparation for the upcoming season.

Already it has been a busy and eventful off-season. From a defensive staff overhaul, to numerous transfers, coach Kevin Sumlin contracting Covid, and the season being pushed out, we have seemingly seen it all.

Arizona Wildcats

Finally we’re returning to a sense of normalcy as the Wildcats prepare for the quickly approaching, 2020 football season!

Well, following the Wildcats’ practice on Monday evening, newly hired Defensive Coordinator Paul Rhoads addressed the media, talking everything from the upcoming season, his personnel and surprisingly the defensive scheme Arizona will be running.

Already, we theorized that Arizona would likely be running a lot of Nickel Defensive packages (meaning using five defensive backs) this season. It seemed logical, especially considering Arizona’s depth issues, particularly at linebacker.

Well, on Monday evening, Rhoads seemed to clear the air on what defensive scheme the Wildcats will be running this season. In his post practice interview, Paul confirmed that the Wildcats will indeed be running a 3-4 Defense, which is what we initially thought when he was first hired.

Ever since coming to Tucson, he had said the goal and plan was for him to always implement a 3-4 defense, and even with the transfers at linebacker recently, those goals have not changed.

Also according to 247Sports’ Jason Scheer, Paul went on to say that every defensive player that is eligible this season on defense should be ready to play come November 7 (Arizona’s opening game against Utah).

Additionally, given Arizona’s depth concerns, a few players that could see a big role this season are incoming freshman linebacker, Derick “DJ” Mourning and senior linebacker Anthony Pandy.

Already the two are drawing early praise, and for DJ, the incoming Texas linebacker could be a surprise. At 6-feet-3-inches and 229 pounds, he certainly looks the part and perhaps that will help him to adapt quickly.

Here is part of Rhoads’ interview from Monday evening!

At Zona Zealots, we’re curious to see how this pans out and will be watching anxiously! As always, Bear Down Arizona!