When he was putting together his staff, new Arizona Wildcats coach Kevin Sumlin made one thing clear: He wasn’t looking for assistants who could do only one thing.
Sumlin wanted teachers, football gurus and ace recruiters.
“I wanted to have a staff that was well-rounded,” Sumlin said earlier in the offseason. “Those guys are hard to find. But this is an experienced staff. … We checked the boxes.”
No quality was more important than any other. But without the recruiting component — without talent — the other two aspects would have their limits.
Put simply: Sumlin and his staff need to recruit better than the previous regime for Arizona to compete annually for the Pac-12 South title. Based on initial impressions, he seems to have put the right pieces in place for the Wildcats to improve their ability to land top talent.
New cornerbacks coach Demetrice Martin was one of the premier recruiters for UCLA, which regularly landed high-ranking classes during his six years with the Bruins. Having coached in the Pac-12 for more than a decade — including two years at USC and three at Washington — Martin knows what that grind is all about.
“It is a marathon run at a sprinter’s pace,” Martin said Thursday after Arizona’s seventh spring practice, a full-pads scrimmage inside Arizona Stadium.
Martin and his fellow assistants follow Sumlin’s lead. He wouldn’t ask his staff to do everything if he wasn’t doing so himself.
“He’s getting his elbows dirty,” Martin said. “He’s constantly talking to recruits and their parents. It’s pretty good when you’ve got the head man helping you like that. That’s always a trump card.”
Martin was the third assistant coach made available to the media since spring ball began. Through those interviews, an outline of the staff’s recruiting strategy has emerged. Here are five of its main tenets: