Hansen's Sunday Notebook: Wildcats' win over ASU a new beginning — or the beginning of the end?
- Updated
Star sports columnist Greg Hansen offers his opinion on recent sports news.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Arizona built a $72 million football facility and gave Rich Rodriguez the keys. It tore down a baseball stadium and turned it into a football practice facility.
It raised the pay of his assistant coaches about 30 percent more than any UA staff ever. It allowed him to create extra positions for recruiters and X and O analysts. It presented him with a retention bonus that could reach $6 million. It looks the other way when TV cameras capture him screaming at his players and assistant coaches.
It allowed him to fire three assistant coaches in one day, a payoff of close to $1 million.
More? The school gives RichRod the weakest non-conference schedules in the Pac-12, year after year, almost as if to say “if you don’t blow it, you get to start every season 3-0.”
And then he flew to Columbia, South Carolina, to pursue the head coach job of the South Carolina Gamecocks. It was a punch in the gut for those who had supported him.
There’s not a lot of warmth for RichRod. It is all about the money. All about the W’s and L’s.
It is the new way of college football and, frankly, it stinks.
There were 6,000 empty seats at Friday’s Territorial Cup game. And it wasn’t just the losing that kept fans away. Arizona’s home football games this year ended just before midnight at 11:36, 11:35, 10:53, 11:27, 11:29 and, finally, 11:10 p.m.
But that is deemed to be OK because the school gets about $27 million per year from the Pac-12’s media rights package.
As Friday night became Saturday morning, with the Territorial Cup on display at the Lowell-Stevens center, RichRod said “this doesn’t erase what was a tough year for us. But we’re going to be better than OK.”
You decide. Is “better than OK” going to work in a conference that has no mercy on those starting over?
Was the compelling 56-35 victory over ASU merely the beginning of the end?
Questions: Will RichRod fire quarterbacks coach Rod Smith and make him pay for an offense that averaged just 24 points per game, which ranks No. 98 of all FBS schools? Will special-teams coach Charlie Ragle be terminated for a kicking game gone wrong? How safe is the job of any coach connected to an offense that failed to gain 5,000 yards, the school’s lowest total since 2007?
Former UA football player Mark Strickling, a graduate of the school’s Eller College of Management, has the perspective of someone who was part of the evolution of a 4-7 team of 1991 — the first Arizona club to lose to ASU since 1981 — to someone present at the birth of the Desert Swarm period.
Late Friday night on his Facebook page, Strickling quoted Dickens:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.”
For once, Dickens applies to Arizona’s football program. Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
There’s not a lot of mystery in Arizona’s 69-65 loss to Butler Friday in Las Vegas.
Lauri Markkanen played just 21 mintues because of foul trouble. Freshman forward Rawle Alkins, who has replaced absent Allonzo Trier, committed five turnovers and did not shoot a free throw in 30 minutes. Trier shot 145 foul shots as a freshman and averaged just 1.7 turnovers per game.
And point guard Jackson Parker-Cartwright could not make a play when he absolutely had to in the final three minutes. It was humbling, especially against an unranked team like Butler.
Minus Trier, Arizona has no margin for error. Now it’s no secret.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Arizona State athletic director Ray Anderson has created considerable debt service to remake Sun Devil Stadium. But this season ASU averaged just 47,736 for home games. That didn’t even match Arizona’s 48,287 for a team that lost eight straight games. ASU and the UA’s low average attendance is a sign of the times in college football’s middle tier; the Wildcats averaged just 47,931 and 47,618 in Rich Rodriguez’s first two seasons, even when it was more exciting with Ka’Deem Carey.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
When RichRod cleaned out his defensive staff last winter, firing Jeff Casteel, Bill Kirelawich and David Lockwood, the Wildcats were coming off seasons in which they gave up an average of 468 and 469 yards per game. This year, under first-year defensive coordinator Marcel Yates, the Wildcats yielded 467 yards per game — an improvement of one yard per game. More telling, Arizona allowed a school-record worst 37.5 points per game.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Casteel’s son, NAU sophomore linebacker Jake Casteel, part of Salpointe Catholic’s 2013 state championship football team, had a breakout season for the Lumberjacks. He had 67 tackles, which was No. 3 among all NAU defensive players. Former Sahuaro High School defensive back Cole Sterns, who was NAU’s starting nickelback, was 10th in total tackles, with 26, for the Lumberjacks. NAU linebacker Taylor Powell, also part of Salpointe’s 2013 title team, was named the Lumberjacks’ special teams player of the year last week: Powell registered 11 solo tackles on special teams and three assisted tackles. He had two kickoff tackles inside the 20-yard line. He also had three fumble recoveries and blocked a punt. Arizona sure could’ve used him.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
One of 34 names on MLB’s Hall of Fame ballot released last week is former Arizona shortstop Trevor Hoffman. It seems a no-brainer that Hoffman will be a first-ballot selection when results of the vote are announced early in 2017. Hoffman’s 601 career saves are an MLB record; he made seven All-Star teams. Five relievers are in the Hall of Fame: Goose Gossage, Rollie Fingers, Bruce Sutter, Hoyt Wilhelm and Dennis Eckersley.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Former Pueblo High School, Pima College and UA third baseman George Arias bought the Centerfield Baseball and Softball Academy near South Palo Verde Road. The ex-Angels and Padres infielder has hired an impressive coaching staff, including current and former minor-league pitchers Red Urbina, Steve Naemark, former PCC head coach Edgar Soto and ex-UA All-American softball player Hallie Wilson.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
One of college baseball’s leading online sites, Division I baseball.com, polled 124 college coaches and asked them to vote for the game’s top recruiters. Arizona’s Jay Johnson finished fifth. The only Pac-12 coach ahead of him was UCLA’s John Savage. Arizona’s lead assistant baseball recruiter, Sergio Brown, was ranked No. 21 among non-head coaches.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Josh Pastner is recruiting in Tucson again. The Georgia Tech coach last week offered Salpointe Catholic sophomore forward Majok Deng a scholarship. That came a week after Deng took an unofficial visit to Utah and was offered a scholarship by Utes coach Larry Krystkowiak and also by Vanderbilt. Arizona has not yet offered Deng, who plays alongside Salpointe’s starting point guard Cam Miller, son of UA coach Sean Miller.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
One of Tucson’s emerging young athletes, tennis player Misa Malkin, continues to make an impact on the USTA circuit. The 14-year-old Malkin two weeks ago won the girls 16 division in the Phoenix Junior Masters championships without losing a set. It was Malkin’s seventh singles victory in 10 elite-level tournaments this year. She is playing in the USTA nationals in Irvine, California, this weekend and will play the Winter Nationals in Tucson in late December. She is coached by Evan Phillips of La Mariposa; Phillips, who played at Wimbledon as a younger player, beat 25 ranked players in his career. Malkin is a home-schooled eighth-grader.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Todd Holthaus’ Pima College women’s basketball team continues to be ranked No. 1 in NJCAA Division II as it intensifies ACCAC league play this week with two games. The 6-1 Aztecs are led by sophomore point guard Sydni Stallworth of Palo Verde High. She signed with Division II power Alaska-Anchorage last week, a program that is 69-5 the last two seasons. Anchorage coach Ryan McCarthy said: “To be able to sign a player and person of Sydni’s caliber, to say we are excited is an understatement. Sydni is widely recognized as one of the top point guards in the nation at any level.” McCarthy’s team thinks big. It has already played D-I teams Washington State and Portland this year (losing to both by single digits) and will play in a four-day tournament in Hawaii in mid-December.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Former Santa Rita High School defensive back Ron Gould was fired last week after four years as head football coach at UC Davis. The Aggies went 12-33 during Gould’s four seasons. They went 5-7 overall and 5-3 in the Big Sky Conference in his first season, then tailed off to 2-9, 2-9 and 3-8. Gould, 51, is due to make a base salary of $235,000 in 2017. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if Gould winds up on Jeff Tedford’s new staff at Fresno State; Gould worked under Tedford for eight years at Cal.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
It appears that Flowing Wells High grad Jeff Thomas, head coach of Puget Sound University, an FCS school in Tacoma, Washington, will return for his eighth year with the Loggers. His team went 3-6 this season and is 16-47 overall, but he coached Puget Sound to a 6-3 record a year ago, the school’s first winning season in 10 years.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
It has been a tragic NBA season for Arizona’s 2005 All-Pac-10 center Channing Frye. His mother, Phoenix journalist Karen Frye, died on Oct. 25. His father, Thomas Frye, who owned a management consulting company in Phoenix, died on Thanksgiving. Frye, 33, has taken an indefinite leave of absence from the Cleveland Cavaliers, where he was averaging 11.3 points and shooting 48.5 percent on three-point shots. He has two years remaining on his Cavaliers contract at $7.4 million per season.
- Greg Hansen Arizona Daily Star
- Updated
Catalina Foothills’ lopsided loss in Saturday’s 4A state championship game to mega-power Scottsdale Saguaro means two things.
One, Foothills had a terrific season and a climb to the state finals. Two, Saguaro, which has won nine state titles in 11 years, should not be playing in Class 4A.
Yes, it technically fits the AIA’s requirements to play in that classification, but it has the resources be play in Class 6A.
As Foothills coach Jeff Scurran told me last week: “I watched Saguaro on film in the playoffs and they seemed bored. It was too easy for them. Our season has been so much different. We laughed, we cried, we had ups and downs. It was so much fun. Saguaro almost seemed emotionless.”
There have been plenty of lopsided state championship games. Tucson High’s 1970 team for the ages routed Phoenix Sunnyslope 54-16. Marana Mountain View’s epic 1993 team rolled over Sahuaro 63-32.
But those high school football teams were cyclical, the product of good timing, good coaching and a bunch of talented athletes in the neighborhood walking through the doors to play for skilled coaches like Ollie Mayfield and Wayne Jones.
Sadly, it’s not a neighborhood game any more.
Arizona built a $72 million football facility and gave Rich Rodriguez the keys. It tore down a baseball stadium and turned it into a football practice facility.
It raised the pay of his assistant coaches about 30 percent more than any UA staff ever. It allowed him to create extra positions for recruiters and X and O analysts. It presented him with a retention bonus that could reach $6 million. It looks the other way when TV cameras capture him screaming at his players and assistant coaches.
It allowed him to fire three assistant coaches in one day, a payoff of close to $1 million.
More? The school gives RichRod the weakest non-conference schedules in the Pac-12, year after year, almost as if to say “if you don’t blow it, you get to start every season 3-0.”
And then he flew to Columbia, South Carolina, to pursue the head coach job of the South Carolina Gamecocks. It was a punch in the gut for those who had supported him.
There’s not a lot of warmth for RichRod. It is all about the money. All about the W’s and L’s.
It is the new way of college football and, frankly, it stinks.
There were 6,000 empty seats at Friday’s Territorial Cup game. And it wasn’t just the losing that kept fans away. Arizona’s home football games this year ended just before midnight at 11:36, 11:35, 10:53, 11:27, 11:29 and, finally, 11:10 p.m.
But that is deemed to be OK because the school gets about $27 million per year from the Pac-12’s media rights package.
As Friday night became Saturday morning, with the Territorial Cup on display at the Lowell-Stevens center, RichRod said “this doesn’t erase what was a tough year for us. But we’re going to be better than OK.”
You decide. Is “better than OK” going to work in a conference that has no mercy on those starting over?
Was the compelling 56-35 victory over ASU merely the beginning of the end?
Questions: Will RichRod fire quarterbacks coach Rod Smith and make him pay for an offense that averaged just 24 points per game, which ranks No. 98 of all FBS schools? Will special-teams coach Charlie Ragle be terminated for a kicking game gone wrong? How safe is the job of any coach connected to an offense that failed to gain 5,000 yards, the school’s lowest total since 2007?
Former UA football player Mark Strickling, a graduate of the school’s Eller College of Management, has the perspective of someone who was part of the evolution of a 4-7 team of 1991 — the first Arizona club to lose to ASU since 1981 — to someone present at the birth of the Desert Swarm period.
Late Friday night on his Facebook page, Strickling quoted Dickens:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.”
For once, Dickens applies to Arizona’s football program. Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess.
There’s not a lot of mystery in Arizona’s 69-65 loss to Butler Friday in Las Vegas.
Lauri Markkanen played just 21 mintues because of foul trouble. Freshman forward Rawle Alkins, who has replaced absent Allonzo Trier, committed five turnovers and did not shoot a free throw in 30 minutes. Trier shot 145 foul shots as a freshman and averaged just 1.7 turnovers per game.
And point guard Jackson Parker-Cartwright could not make a play when he absolutely had to in the final three minutes. It was humbling, especially against an unranked team like Butler.
Minus Trier, Arizona has no margin for error. Now it’s no secret.
Arizona State athletic director Ray Anderson has created considerable debt service to remake Sun Devil Stadium. But this season ASU averaged just 47,736 for home games. That didn’t even match Arizona’s 48,287 for a team that lost eight straight games. ASU and the UA’s low average attendance is a sign of the times in college football’s middle tier; the Wildcats averaged just 47,931 and 47,618 in Rich Rodriguez’s first two seasons, even when it was more exciting with Ka’Deem Carey.
When RichRod cleaned out his defensive staff last winter, firing Jeff Casteel, Bill Kirelawich and David Lockwood, the Wildcats were coming off seasons in which they gave up an average of 468 and 469 yards per game. This year, under first-year defensive coordinator Marcel Yates, the Wildcats yielded 467 yards per game — an improvement of one yard per game. More telling, Arizona allowed a school-record worst 37.5 points per game.
Casteel’s son, NAU sophomore linebacker Jake Casteel, part of Salpointe Catholic’s 2013 state championship football team, had a breakout season for the Lumberjacks. He had 67 tackles, which was No. 3 among all NAU defensive players. Former Sahuaro High School defensive back Cole Sterns, who was NAU’s starting nickelback, was 10th in total tackles, with 26, for the Lumberjacks. NAU linebacker Taylor Powell, also part of Salpointe’s 2013 title team, was named the Lumberjacks’ special teams player of the year last week: Powell registered 11 solo tackles on special teams and three assisted tackles. He had two kickoff tackles inside the 20-yard line. He also had three fumble recoveries and blocked a punt. Arizona sure could’ve used him.
One of 34 names on MLB’s Hall of Fame ballot released last week is former Arizona shortstop Trevor Hoffman. It seems a no-brainer that Hoffman will be a first-ballot selection when results of the vote are announced early in 2017. Hoffman’s 601 career saves are an MLB record; he made seven All-Star teams. Five relievers are in the Hall of Fame: Goose Gossage, Rollie Fingers, Bruce Sutter, Hoyt Wilhelm and Dennis Eckersley.
Former Pueblo High School, Pima College and UA third baseman George Arias bought the Centerfield Baseball and Softball Academy near South Palo Verde Road. The ex-Angels and Padres infielder has hired an impressive coaching staff, including current and former minor-league pitchers Red Urbina, Steve Naemark, former PCC head coach Edgar Soto and ex-UA All-American softball player Hallie Wilson.
One of college baseball’s leading online sites, Division I baseball.com, polled 124 college coaches and asked them to vote for the game’s top recruiters. Arizona’s Jay Johnson finished fifth. The only Pac-12 coach ahead of him was UCLA’s John Savage. Arizona’s lead assistant baseball recruiter, Sergio Brown, was ranked No. 21 among non-head coaches.
Josh Pastner is recruiting in Tucson again. The Georgia Tech coach last week offered Salpointe Catholic sophomore forward Majok Deng a scholarship. That came a week after Deng took an unofficial visit to Utah and was offered a scholarship by Utes coach Larry Krystkowiak and also by Vanderbilt. Arizona has not yet offered Deng, who plays alongside Salpointe’s starting point guard Cam Miller, son of UA coach Sean Miller.
One of Tucson’s emerging young athletes, tennis player Misa Malkin, continues to make an impact on the USTA circuit. The 14-year-old Malkin two weeks ago won the girls 16 division in the Phoenix Junior Masters championships without losing a set. It was Malkin’s seventh singles victory in 10 elite-level tournaments this year. She is playing in the USTA nationals in Irvine, California, this weekend and will play the Winter Nationals in Tucson in late December. She is coached by Evan Phillips of La Mariposa; Phillips, who played at Wimbledon as a younger player, beat 25 ranked players in his career. Malkin is a home-schooled eighth-grader.
Todd Holthaus’ Pima College women’s basketball team continues to be ranked No. 1 in NJCAA Division II as it intensifies ACCAC league play this week with two games. The 6-1 Aztecs are led by sophomore point guard Sydni Stallworth of Palo Verde High. She signed with Division II power Alaska-Anchorage last week, a program that is 69-5 the last two seasons. Anchorage coach Ryan McCarthy said: “To be able to sign a player and person of Sydni’s caliber, to say we are excited is an understatement. Sydni is widely recognized as one of the top point guards in the nation at any level.” McCarthy’s team thinks big. It has already played D-I teams Washington State and Portland this year (losing to both by single digits) and will play in a four-day tournament in Hawaii in mid-December.
Former Santa Rita High School defensive back Ron Gould was fired last week after four years as head football coach at UC Davis. The Aggies went 12-33 during Gould’s four seasons. They went 5-7 overall and 5-3 in the Big Sky Conference in his first season, then tailed off to 2-9, 2-9 and 3-8. Gould, 51, is due to make a base salary of $235,000 in 2017. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if Gould winds up on Jeff Tedford’s new staff at Fresno State; Gould worked under Tedford for eight years at Cal.
It appears that Flowing Wells High grad Jeff Thomas, head coach of Puget Sound University, an FCS school in Tacoma, Washington, will return for his eighth year with the Loggers. His team went 3-6 this season and is 16-47 overall, but he coached Puget Sound to a 6-3 record a year ago, the school’s first winning season in 10 years.
It has been a tragic NBA season for Arizona’s 2005 All-Pac-10 center Channing Frye. His mother, Phoenix journalist Karen Frye, died on Oct. 25. His father, Thomas Frye, who owned a management consulting company in Phoenix, died on Thanksgiving. Frye, 33, has taken an indefinite leave of absence from the Cleveland Cavaliers, where he was averaging 11.3 points and shooting 48.5 percent on three-point shots. He has two years remaining on his Cavaliers contract at $7.4 million per season.
Catalina Foothills’ lopsided loss in Saturday’s 4A state championship game to mega-power Scottsdale Saguaro means two things.
One, Foothills had a terrific season and a climb to the state finals. Two, Saguaro, which has won nine state titles in 11 years, should not be playing in Class 4A.
Yes, it technically fits the AIA’s requirements to play in that classification, but it has the resources be play in Class 6A.
As Foothills coach Jeff Scurran told me last week: “I watched Saguaro on film in the playoffs and they seemed bored. It was too easy for them. Our season has been so much different. We laughed, we cried, we had ups and downs. It was so much fun. Saguaro almost seemed emotionless.”
There have been plenty of lopsided state championship games. Tucson High’s 1970 team for the ages routed Phoenix Sunnyslope 54-16. Marana Mountain View’s epic 1993 team rolled over Sahuaro 63-32.
But those high school football teams were cyclical, the product of good timing, good coaching and a bunch of talented athletes in the neighborhood walking through the doors to play for skilled coaches like Ollie Mayfield and Wayne Jones.
Sadly, it’s not a neighborhood game any more.
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