UA coach Rich Rodriguez has long held a 24-hour rule for games.
It is OK to celebrate the wins when they come, and to dwell on the losses, but it’s over after a day.
Arizona’s coaching staff didn’t give itself 24 hours to celebrate Friday night’s dominant win against Arizona State.
By Saturday, they were off recruiting. The Wildcats’ future success will hinge on the players Rodriguez and his assistants can add — and keep — over the next few months. Players who have verbally committed for 2017 can sign letters of intent in February.
“It’s an important class, obviously, for a lot of reasons,” Rodriguez said last week. “But I think it’s going to be one of the best classes certainly we’ve had and maybe this school’s had. … Part of our issues have been, we’ve made a few mistakes in recruiting and probably haven’t recruited like we really needed to. I saw it coming.”
Arizona’s 3-9 record and 1-8 Pac-12 mark isn’t turning away those who have already recruited — at least not yet.
Remarkably, despite Arizona’s tough season, the Wildcats haven’t lost a single 2017 commitment outside of defensive lineman Elijah Watson, with whom Arizona chose to part ways.
Cornerbacks coach Donté Williams said the loyalty is a result of the relationship the staff has built with those players.
“It’s hard to break up a family,” Williams said. “Instead of talking to our coaches maybe once or twice a week because we’ve only been recruiting them for two weeks, we’ve been recruiting them for months on months on months. So the relationship is built there. Once the relationship is built, it’s a family.”
With no bowl game to prepare for, the Wildcats coaches will double down on recruiting. NCAA rules allow contact between now and Dec. 12; after that, the NCAA institutes a month-long “dead period” where coaches can only recruit via phone and social media.
Rodriguez drove to the Phoenix area on Friday night in order to catch his son, Arizona quarterback commit Rhett Rodriguez, play in a Saturday morning state championship game against Scottsdale Saguaro. Rodriguez and offensive line coach Jim Michalczik watched their sons play while keeping an eye on Saguaro offensive lineman Jax Wacaser, a UA target.
Rodriguez then flew to Las Vegas, presumably to check on three UA commits: offensive lineman Edgar Burrola and linebacker Tony Fields, teammates at Desert Pines High School, and Bishop Gorman cornerback Malik Hausman.
Defensive line coach Vince Amey visited defensive line commit Austin Faoliu at Santa Ana, California powerhouse Mater Dei, offered a scholarship to his younger brother, Drew, a 2018 defensive line recruit, then drove to Mission Hills to offer College of the Canyons defensive tackle Sione Taufahema a scholarship.
Special teams coach Charlie Ragle and defensive coordinator Marcel Yates drove to Mesa to check in with Jalen Harris, an athlete committed to the 2017 class, and his brother Jason, a target for 2020.
Williams is leading the way for a number of 2017 recruiting targets, most importantly four-star cornerback Thomas Graham and five-star wide receiver Joseph Lewis, both from Southern California.
Rodriguez has often pointed to the 2017 class as reason for optimism. He and the UA coaches must make sure the class holds together.
“The approach is: now it gets even better,” Williams said. “It’s one thing to talk to a recruit on the phone or when they come on an official visit or after a game just for a second. It’s another thing when you get a chance to sit in the living room with the whole family.”
The Wildcats’ staff has a lot more time to develop those relationships this year. Williams, Yates, Amey and safeties coach Jahmile Addae were hired last January, meaning they had to scramble to secure the 2016 class. This year, they can be more selective.
“We all got hired late, so we didn’t even know what we had on this team,” Williams said. “A lot of guys we might’ve needed that could’ve been impact players right away, it was too late to go after them. Now we’ve been here for a year and seen the team develop, whether it was offense or defense, we see what we need to be in every game.
“We’re going to fill those needs.”
