Like every coach across the country, Arizona’s Rich Rodriguez evaluates every aspect of his program at the conclusion of every season. At the end of 2015, he took a long, hard look at the Wildcats’ defense.
Rodriguez didn’t like what he saw.
Yes, injuries ravaged the UA defense last year, particularly at linebacker, where All-American Scooby Wright missed all but three games. But Arizona’s defensive struggles weren’t a blip; the Wildcats were trending downward.
Last season marked the second year in a row in which the defense ranked significantly lower nationally in yards and points allowed. Even with Wright enjoying a season for the ages in 2014, Arizona’s defense surrendered more yards and points per game than in ’13.
So Rodriguez had a decision to make. It would be the most important call of his career in Tucson.
“Are the issues we have fixable with what we’ve got?” Rodriguez asked himself. “Or … do we need to just start all over again?”
Rodriguez could have applied a Band-Aid to Arizona’s defense. He elected for a transfusion.
Rodriguez dismissed three coaches who had been with him from the start of his UA tenure in 2012: defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Jeff Casteel; defensive line coach Bill Kirelawich; and cornerbacks coach David Lockwood. Safeties coach Matt Caponi, who also had been part of the UA staff since ’12, left to take another job.
Rodriguez played for Kirelawich at West Virginia, and coached alongside both Kirelawich and Casteel for seven seasons with the Mountaineers.He described them as “guys that you respect” and “really, really good coaches.” He labeled the decision to part ways with them the most difficult of his career. Sometimes head coaches have to cast personal relationships aside and do what they believe is best for the program.
The move shocked Arizona’s players. They also understood it.
“Obviously, something wasn’t clicking,” senior defensive tackle Sani Fuimaono said. “Something wasn’t going right. Coach felt that this was what needed to be changed.”
The moves made in late December and early January represented the first step in Rodriguez’s plan to restructure the defense. Now he had to find the right coordinator to execute the rest of it.
Rodriguez repeatedly has said he was seeking more of a personality than a scheme — someone who could be a “consensus builder.” Rodriguez would provide parameters; the new coach had to apply them.
The man who fit that description had matched wits with Rodriguez 12 months earlier.
From Bozeman to Tucson
Arizona always had intrigued Marcel Yates. As a high school player in Los Angeles in the 1990s, he wanted to play in the then-Pac-10, for either the UA or Washington State. His path took him elsewhere.
Almost two decades later, Yates got to coach against the Wildcats. He had become the defensive coordinator at his alma mater, Boise State, which defeated Arizona in the Dec. 31, 2014, Fiesta Bowl. “That happened for a reason,” Yates thought to himself.
Boise State ranked in the top 10 in the country in turnovers forced in 2014 and ’15. The Broncos ranked 12th in total defense last season. But it was Yates’ disposition, more than his résumé, that won over Rodriguez.
“All coaches have a little bit of an ego,” Rodriguez said. “You want them to be comfortable in what they’re doing and have confidence in what they’re doing, and Marcel did.
“But I also said to Marcel, ‘You’re going to run some of your stuff, but I’m going to give you some of my stuff, or some of our stuff, that I want you to implement. Are you willing to do that?’ Some guys wouldn’t be willing to do that. Marcel said, ‘Yeah, we’ll adapt.’”
Yates finally made it to Arizona, where he signed a multiyear contract paying $500,000 annually — an unthinkable amount for the former assistant secondary coach at Montana State.
Yates’ playing career ended after his senior season in 1999; his knees were shot. He wanted to get into coaching, and some former Boise State coaches happened to be on staff at Montana State. He moved from L.A. to Bozeman, Montana, in January 2001.
“When I got off the plane,” Yates said, “I thought I was in Russia.”
Yates had seen plenty of snow in Boise. “Not like that, though,” he said.
But Yates’ experience in the Big Sky Conference proved invaluable.
He made $8,000 a year, did all the grunt work, drove a taxi to supplement his income — and impressed his colleagues with his dedication and work ethic.
“You knew he had the passion for the profession,” said Washington defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski, who worked with Yates at Montana State and Boise State. “He was going to do what he had to to stay in it.”
While at Montana State, Yates learned to make the most of what he had. The situation was particularly bleak in ’01: The Bobcats had been 0-11 the previous season.
“You didn’t necessarily have the best athletes, and you actually learned how to coach up technique and scheme,” Yates said. “Hand placement, eye placement, pad level.”
Montana State improved to 5-6 in 2001 and 7-6 in ’02. New, higher-paying opportunities came Yates’ way. He eventually returned to Boise State, where he coached defensive backs from 2003-11.
Five Broncos DBs got picked in the NFL draft from 2007-12. All were considered two- or three-star recruits coming out of high school.
“When you have better athletes, it’s easy to overlook their faults,” said John Rushing, who coached Yates at Boise State and worked alongside him at Montana State. “When you have some of the marginal athletes, you have to squeeze everything out of them. Coming up through the lower ranks, you get a different eye for talent.”
In terms of talent, Arizona is a far cry from Montana State. Or even Boise State. But the UA isn’t on par with Stanford, UCLA or USC. The lessons Yates learned in Bozeman and Boise can be applied in Tucson.
“Most coaches at this level have a knowledge of football,” Rushing said. “It’s putting it all together, understanding players, getting the most out of players.”
‘A different attitude’
Kwiatkowski, who has been Washington’s defensive coordinator the past two seasons, is asked a basic question: When it comes to playing good defense, which matters more — attitude or scheme?
“Probably 80-90 percent of it is getting them to play with that physical mentality, having the mental toughness and fortitude to keep competing at a high level,” said Kwiatkowski, whose defense ranked first in the Pac-12 in 2015. “It’s getting them thinking that and believing that and having that mindset. There are a bunch of ways you can skin a cat schematically.”
Arizona has kept its new scheme largely under wraps. Yet Yates’ imprint on the defense already can be seen. Or at least heard, through the testimonials of his charges.
“We have a different attitude,” sophomore safety Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles said. “When he first got here, he laid it down: ‘We want to win. We don’t like losing. We don’t ever want to lose.’”
One of senior linebacker Michael Barton’s best friends, Blake Renaud, played at Boise State under Yates. Renaud, who played linebacker at Boise and spent last season as a fullback on the Minnesota Vikings’ practice squad, told Barton that Yates was “one of the best coaches he’s ever had.”
“That was definitely encouraging,” said Barton, who transferred to Arizona this summer. “I’m just mad that I didn’t have him for four years.”
Freshman safety Isaiah Hayes initially committed to Boise State before Pac-12 schools discovered him. He said Yates was “the main reason” he pledged to the Broncos. Hayes considers it a blessing that they ended up at the same school.
“I couldn’t have planned that or expected that,” he said. “That just shows you how God works.”
Although Yates coaches linebackers at the UA, and Hayes plays safety, the freshman said the two often will talk while walking off the practice field. Communication is a vital component in Yates’ operation. While speaking to a visitor in his corner office at the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility, Yates points to a couch that sits near his desk. That’s where most of his “counseling sessions” take place, he said. He encourages players to drop by and talk about whatever is on their minds.
“You need to meet your players and really know who they are — and they need to know you,” Yates said. “Usually, when guys come around, they’re in your office and they’re talking to you, they tend to be doing the right thing. When you don’t see guys, when they don’t want to be around you, they’re hiding something.
“The more guys are around, the more they’re in your office, the more comfortable they feel around your staff, the more comfortable they are with you — and you can kind of start relaying your message to these guys, what you expect.”
Longtime Oregon defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti, who’s now an analyst for Pac-12 Networks, said nothing is more important than the message —whatever it might be — getting through to the players.
“The best teams I ever had were because my players were self-policed,” Aliotti said. “They took ownership. They gave my message, but their way.”
Yates, who turns 39 later this month, seems to have a way of connecting with his players. That personality Rodriguez was seeking complements his own: energetic yet laid-back, fun yet serious. Yates considers himself more big brother than father figure.
“He’s kind of a no-nonsense guy but a good guy,” said Washington coach Chris Petersen, Yates’ former boss at Boise. “He’s a real personable guy —everybody likes Marcel — but he also knows how to coach defensive football and get his guys to play at a high level.”
How good can they be?
Rodriguez’s plan has been a smash success … so far. Veterans and newcomers on defense have raved about their coaches. Excitement and enthusiasm are at peak levels heading into the season. That alone could make a profound difference.
“You’ve got all this new energy you didn’t have before,” said Pac-12 Networks analyst and former Arizona lineman Glenn Parker. “It’s just that psychological bump, that emotional lift that you get. It’s going to be evident in Year 1.”
While conceding that the new defense will be “a work in progress,” Rodriguez insists that the expectation is to be “good off the bat.” He is confident Yates will spearhead a turnaround. The question is how good the Wildcats can be, and how soon. No one knows for sure.
“Even when I was on teams where I thought, ‘We’re going to be pretty good,’ you never know how good you really are until you play against somebody else,” Yates said.
“Until we line up September 3, I have no clue what we have. We think we have a chance to be pretty good, but who knows?”
One recent example highlights the possibilities.
Washington State coach Mike Leach hired Alex Grinch as the Cougars’ defensive coordinator in January 2015 after a miserable ’14 season. Under Grinch, Washington State allowed 26 fewer yards per game and 11 fewer points. The Cougars forced three times as many turnovers in ’15 (24) as they had in ’14 (eight).
“He just really changed the whole culture of our defense,” Cougars nickel ’backer Parker Henry said of Grinch.
Leach sought clearer communication and more passion, and Grinch delivered both. The Cougars’ defense didn’t go from bad to great overnight. But it became respectable and played a huge role in WSU improving from 3-9 to 9-4.
Of course, just because it worked for Washington State doesn’t mean it will for Arizona. The circumstances are similar but not the same. Many — including Rodriguez — question whether the UA has enough talent, experience and depth on defense to make substantial improvement this season.
They might be discounting one crucial factor: pride. As Henry put it, “You don’t want to be the faction of the team that’s holding the team back.”
Several Wildcats have mentioned feeling more determined this year because of what happened last year. Fuimaono is asked how the performance of the 2015 defense makes him feel: Angry? Frustrated? Embarrassed?
“I would say all of the above,” Fuimaono said. “That’s not Arizona football. We hold ourselves to a much higher standard than that.”
