Arizona Football: Coaching staff thinks DL may be better than advertised

With the Arizona Football team making headway prior to the start of the 2020 season, Head Coach Kevin Sumlin thinks the Defensive Line could be better than people think.

We are just weeks until the start of the 2020 Arizona Football season, and already there are a lot of questions for Kevin Sumlin and his Wildcats. None perhaps bigger than what will this defense look like this year.

Already, we’ve talked about this seemingly over and over again. How will the defense be this year? Will Arizona be able to put together a decent pass rush for once?

Arizona Wildcats

Switching to a 3-4 Defense, the Wildcats went out and brought in more depth, particularly along the defensive line, with additions like Roy Lopez (grad transfer), Aaron Blackwell (grad transfer), Shontrail Key, Regen Terry, Dion Wilson and Paris Shand most notably.

On paper this group certainly looks better, but is it really? Well, we can sure hope so. However, if we have learned anything these past few years as fans of the Wildcats, it is that any time we get our hopes up, it indubitably goes up in smoke.

Well, it seems as if Sumlin and his staff may have a different opinion. Now granted, I don’t take him or this program to be the type to come right out and say “you know what, we’re going to struggle a lot this year”, and it wouldn’t exactly be the greatest sales pitch either, especially for a guy who is trying to distance himself from a 9-15 record the past two seasons.

Nonetheless, I do at least trust the confidence of the coaching staff in the defensive line group thus far, bias aside.

As you may recall, Arizona brought in Blackwell and Lopez to have an immediate impact, and I don’t think the Wildcats would bring in both of those guys if they didn’t at least have the belief that they would.

Also, given the Wildcats’ depth issues along the defensive line, why wouldn’t the additions of both Blackwell and Lopez bring improved results?

Well, at Zona Zealots, we’re certainly curious to see how this group turns out and as always, Bear Down, Arizona!