My two cents: Arizona's coaches now speak language of millennials
College football is changing and not subtly. Coaching staffs are getting younger because recruiting 17-year-old prospects is best suited to coaches who speak the language of millennials.
In retrospect, you can now see Rich Rodriguez’s master plan as he cleaned out his entire defensive staff and started over with coaches aged 32, 33, 37 and 41.
He not only saved about $150,000 per year in the switch of defensive coordinators, Jeff Casteel to Marcel Yates, he’ll probably save an additional $100,000 replacing Bill Kirelawich with Vince Amey.
With that extra $250,000 or so, RichRod was able to double his full-time recruiting staff, hiring Chris Singletary, who spent nine years as a recruiting specialist at Michigan, under four coaches. He’ll work with Matt Dudek, who fluently speaks the language of those wearing high school football gear.
The most astute X’s and O’s coaches on the planet can’t do much good with lower-tier recruits, as Arizona painfully learned under Casteel, Kirelawich and the old defensive staff.
The unknown is whether RichRod acted soon enough to alter the course of Arizona’s football program. Blowing off a traditional spring game to concentrate on blocking, tackling and fundamentals is a loud and clear message that the Wildcats are in serious trouble.
