Good high school offensive linemen are easy to spot — they’re usually the guys clearing holes and protecting blind spots.
Projecting prep stars at the next level, however, can be tough.
Cody Shear has committed to the UA’s highly-touted 2017 recruiting class. At a minimum, the Wildcats are bringing in a football player who doesn’t take kindly to losing.
On Friday, Shear’s high school team — Sheldon in Eugene, Oregon — lost its first game of the season after opening 7-0. Six of those wins came by 20 points or more.
Then the Irish lost to South Medford last week, 41-20.
“I’m not going to lie, I get pretty frustrated,” Shear said. “I’m not very talkative (after a loss), I thank my family for coming to the game and then I don’t really talk to them or anybody until the next day.”
Shear and other seniors on the team called a players-only meeting where they talked about “getting back on the right track.”
“We don’t want to be a team that thinks it’s OK, like ‘we just lost one game,’” Shear said. “That’s not OK. We need to fix that and get back on the right track.”
There’s only one regular-season game left in Shear’s senior season before the state playoffs, and it’s been a rather impressive one for the three-star offensive lineman. Shear picked the Wildcats in July over offers from 29 — yes, 29 — other schools, including BYU, Washington State, Oregon State and Georgia Tech.
He has since dominated on the field. Shear has recorded 74 pancake blocks — a block that leaves a defensive player flat on his back — and added 45 tackles, 5.5 tackles-for-loss and three sacks as a defensive lineman, according to Maxpreps.com.
On Saturday, Shear will take his first in-season visit to Arizona’s campus. The Wildcats host Stanford at 8 p.m.
“I’m really excited” for the visit, Shear said. “I’ve never been there for a game, I’ve seen practices. To get to see the game environment and take advantage of the things I’m not going to be able to do next year — I’d rather be out on the field than tailgating or things like that — but just to get to see what the Arizona Wildcat fans get to do on game days, is going to be a pretty cool experience.”
Arizona coaches stay busy recruiting during bye week
Last year’s strange schedule — no bye week — prevented UA coaches from visiting both recruiting commitments and targets.
That wasn’t a problem this year. Wildcat coaches scattered after Thursday’s practice to places near and far.
Receivers coach Tony Dews made stops in Michigan, Kansas and Los Angeles; cornerbacks coach Donte Williams worked his way all over Southern California, as did defensive coordinator Marcel Yates; defensive line coach Vince Amey hit the Bay Area; offensive line coach Jim Michalczik was in Las Vegas; safeties coach Jahmile Addae went from Mobile, Alabama, to San Diego, and special teams coach Charlie Ragle drove to the Phoenix area.
There was some local work, too: Coach Rich Rodriguez and co-offensive coordinator Calvin Magee watched Arizona Western defensive end Matt Leo play against Pima College. Leo is a UA commit still receiving interest from Iowa State.
Along the way, the Wildcats reaffirmed commitments to various 2017 recruits and offered scholarships to some players for next year and beyond. That includes offers for 2017 offensive lineman Nick Ford from San Pedro, California; 2019 cornerback Chris Steele from Bellflower, California; 2019 brothers Keon and Kejuan Markham from Long Beach, California; and 2018 Phoenix Mountain Pointe safety Kenny Churchwell.
“We’re getting position coaches involved even more so in recruiting,” Rodriguez said Monday. “That part has been overwhelmingly positive. The guys really like the personalities of all of our coaches. Defensively, there’s new guys and they’ve resonated with recruits, and it’s been very helpful in recruiting, I think.”
Extra points
- UA commit Greg Johnson took an official visit to Nebraska over the weekend. Johnson, Arizona’s highest-rated 2017 commit, told Scout.com that he “liked the trip a lot” and said his favorite part was the game atmosphere because he’d “never seen a crowd like that before.” Nebraska extended its NCAA-record sellout streak to 352 games on Saturday.
