Arizona’s football administration launched its spring recruiting period with some clever social media dispatches, including one that said:
The Road to Nashville
Who’s Next?
The ongoing NFL draft is being held in Nashville, Tennessee, and it’s likely that no draft-eligible Wildcats football player will be “next.” Arizona didn’t have a “next” in 2013, 2015 and 2018, either.
This has been a problem. To win consistently in Pac-12 football, you’ve got to have guys. That’s the term long-time NFL television analyst John Madden used when describing the best teams.
“They’ve got so many guys,” he would say. Most of those “guys” were prominent NFL draft choices.
Arizona has had too few guys the last 20 years. That’s why the Wildcats seriously contended for Pac-12 championships only in 2009 and 2014.
Here’s how many “guys” have been drafted from Pac-12 schools since 2000, counting the three players taken Thursday night:
- USC: 107, including 22 first-rounders
- Stanford: 67, with seven first-rounders
- Cal: 63, with 11 first-rounders
- UCLA: 61, with nine first-rounders
- Oregon: 60, with eight first-rounders
- Arizona State: 50, with seven first-rounders
- Utah: 50, with four first-rounders
- Washington: 45, with 10 first-rounders
- Oregon State: 45, with three first-rounders
- Colorado: 40, with four first-rounders
- Arizona: 35, with two first-rounders — Trung Canidate in 2000 and Antoine Cason in 2008
- Washington State: 27, with three first-rounders
No wonder Arizona has all but faded from college football’s landscape. In the previous 20 years, 1980-99, Arizona had 71 players drafted, more than double the total of the most recent two decades.
It is reason No. 1 why the Wildcats were strong contenders for the Rose Bowl in 1984, 1985, 1986, 1993, 1994 and 1998. They had guys.
UA’s only other first-rounder in the last 20 drafts was running back Trung Canidate. He was the 31st pick in 2000.
In Kevin Sumlin’s first full recruiting cycle at Arizona, he must have researched the UA’s inability to produce NFL draft picks. He surely noticed that from 2013-2017, Rich Rodriguez inexplicably signed just one player from talent-blessed Texas: safety Tristan of El Paso.
Sumlin signed eight Texans this year. And when Sumlin dispatched nine assistant coaches to hit the recruiting road this week, the school made it known that Jeremy Springer, Taylor Mazzone, Noel Mazzone, Marcel Yates, DeMarco Murray and Theron Aych all went to Texas.
Sumlin’s social media staff created faux airline tickets with all six of those coaches destined for the Lone Star State. Three other assistants went to Iowa, Utah and California.
This should be good news for long-suffering UA football fans. The search for guys has changed locations.
Since Arizona produced its last first-round draft choice, Cason in 2008, its Pac-12 opponents have had 44 total first-round picks. That’s absurd in any Power 5 football league unless you’re Vanderbilt or Rutgers.
Put it this way: Of the last 44 first-round draft picks from Pac-12 teams, none have been from Arizona.
Arizona’s only second-round selections in that period were Rob Gronkowski, Eben Britton and Brooks Reed. That’s ridiculous. Do you realize that in the 2009-18 NFL drafts, the rest of the Pac-12 had 52 second-round picks?
That’s a lot of guys going to the competition, but it hasn’t always been the case.
San Diego Chargers cornerback Antoine Cason intercepts a pass during the first quarter of an NFL preseason football game against the St. Louis Rams, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2008, in St. Louis.
On April 23, 1990, two Wildcats were the NFL’s version of lottery picks. Linebacker Chris Singleton was selected eighth overall by the New England Patriots, and defensive end Anthony Smith went No. 11 overall to the Oakland Raiders. Tackle Glenn Parker was a third-round choice, No. 69 overall to the Buffalo Bills.
That all happened in one day. Singleton, Smith and Parker.
Over a six-year period, 1989-94 — through Dick Tomey’s “Desert Swarm” years — Arizona had 22 draft picks. Tackle John Fina was a first-round pick. Running back Chuck Levy went in the second round, as did cornerback Darryll Lewis and center Joe Tofflemire. NFL scouts and coaches spent so much time evaluating UA players during spring camp that Bill Belichick himself came to Tucson to evaluate Fina, and while doing so was impressed with UA offensive coordinator Pat Hill. Belichick soon hired Hill to join him with the Cleveland Browns.
One can’t picture Belichick spending much time in Tucson over the last 20 years.
No, it’s not always about NFL prospects and draft picks. Washington State recently rose to power in the Pac-12 with superior coaching and a passing system designed by Mike Leach that has made the Cougars relevant without a roll-call of NFL prospects. But the Cougars are an exception.
In 1968, Arizona tackle Bill Lueck became the school’s first-ever first-round draft pick in the modern era of college football. Lueck, who grew up on a dairy farm in Litchfield Park, eschewed a chance to join his brother Bob on Frank Kush’s juggernaut at Arizona State.
Lueck was spotted by NFL scouts only because the Wildcats scheduled a legitimate Top 25 team for the first time in history — Ohio State — and stunned the Buckeyes at the Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio.
It was at that game that Green Bay Packers scout watched Lueck and made a note to tell Vince Lombardi about this unknown prospect from Arizona.
On draft day, Packers director of player personnel Pat Peppler phoned Lueck, telling him that Green Bay had drafted him in the first round.
Lueck was so surprised that he famously said “I thought it was a prank.”
Oh, how an Arizona football player — any Arizona football player — would enjoy a “prank call” today.
