WSR Gridiron Report

I'm all for it.

Possible essay topics;
1. How the F*** could RR screw up recruiting this bad in his first year?
2. If Arizona hired God as a FB coach, why is it that they still couldn't make a real bowl game?
3. Should Sean Miller be fired or just asked to resign for missing the 2012 NCAA tournament?
4. List a single reason that any one of our offensive linemen should have had their scholarships renewed. In which 2011 game did any one of them show ALL-Pac-12 ability?
5. Name a single Wildcat player that could play for any BCS bowl team, even as a back up, other than Carey and Bondourant. Remember that Bilal graduated.... good luck, you're going to need it.
6. Why is Richardson still on the team after the B.S. against UCLA?
7. Predict the decade in which we will defeat USC next in football. Is it the 2040 decade, the 2050 decade or the the 2120 decade?
8. If a linebacker misses a tackle in the forest and none of his 10 teammates are there to help, does the opponent score?
9. How much faster does a 160lb guy have to be to negate the advantage of a 220lb guy?
10. List the past national champions with poor kicking games/special teams.

I don't know if these are reasons or excuses, but RR was only hired in November and didn't even get his DC in place until January, only few weeks before signing day. I know he spent time trying to keep the recruits we already had. He lost some (notably TE McNamara), but was also in on a few towards the end (QB that went to Iowa and D Neal who went to Notre Dame). A lot of other colleges had more time building relationships with the recruits. I know Graham up north also didn't have much time, but as commented in other threads, he recuited/signed heavy on the JC side. Maybe RR is looking for "his" guys who he is comfortable with, which is why he went after his former 160 lb recruit when he was at Michigan or tapping into the PA and FL areas. Overall, I think RR will be able to recruit well because he appears to be a people person and able to establish good relationships.

Thought I'd compliment this thread with a very informative item from Anthony Gimino just hitting the net a few hours ago. It begs to be examined by the distinguished gentleman from the spirits distribution industry.
http://tucsoncitizen.com/wildcatreport/2012/06/18/arizona-wildcats-football-roster-reveals-plenty-of-new-names/

There is a hyper-link on the above post that gets you to the full Arizona roster. This current roster then can be examined from different vantage points: by jersey number, by position, by class and by height/weight.

When I looked at the height/weight stats, I was surprised that Arizona currently has 4 big ugly beasts that are 6'6'' and three ugly beasts that are listed at 6'8''.

I remain optimistic.

Thanks Nogo....seems that there could be a few gems in the rough among these kids and obviously the coach from Phoenix is feeding several kids with local ties into the program - almost all are from AZ.

Reading this list - I feel a tinge of shame. These kids aren't scheduling press conferences at a elementary school and not showing up. They are the anti-Wagners - guys with no guarantees whatsoever, but love the game so much they will work hard to play. These guys give me hope, about life. They'll likely get their butts handed to them on the field in the PAC-12, but they are all winners.

Pulled in two LBs today, the kid from Buckeye and a guy from NorCal.

For the casual perusers, the Tucson Citizen link heavily suggests that ASU is still cheating in baseball. Of course, ASU having an accounting error is entirely plausible.

From Dan Bickley:

Incredibly, Arizona actually led the Pac-12 in baseball attendance for most of the season. Yet in the final weeks of the season, ASU surged ahead to take top honors. The Sun Devils went from 54,721 total fans to 82,214 over the final four games, an implausible increase of nearly 28,000.

Wichita State’s Tami Cutler, who compiles the statistics for the NCAA, said ASU’s sports information office e-mailed her with corrected season figures two weeks before the final report was published. Mark Brand, the school’s SID, said the corrections came after an assistant noticed a season-long accounting error.

Suspicious?

“I don’t have any comment about that,” Byrne said.

The sad thing here is that Mike Stoops and Tim are out in Oklahoma doing a great job. If their JUCO wr's come in as planned (Bester and Courtney Gardner, both JUCO AA's-both 6'3" over 215 and 4.4) they could be a national championship level team They are completely loaded at every position. And Mike has completely changed his act in recruiting and has spent a huge amount of time in Cali and Florida and has visits set up with at least 16 DB's that are very talented. And Tim, always steady is doing very well as well.

But I will give RR the benefit of the doubt. He has never recruited by stars in his system, And it will not happen overnight,

But don't be surprised in Mike and Tim are coaching in a National Championship game this year. It could happen.

Great post pantheraoca, and very true spikesss. Most of us have followed sports long enough to realize that some guys are better coordinators than head coaches, and there's nothing wrong with that...except for the school where they tried their hand at being the head coach.

And God bless you Jerry for saying what I've been thinking but never reduced to words. I was always willing to cut Mike some slack as a DC who may be slightly over his head as a HC, but I was always irked that he could never accept and embrace the university and the community like Miller did. Sean had more involvement in this community within one year over Stoops' roughly eight years.