Arizona secondary 'not a finished product,' Jay'Vion Cole a 'Steady Eddie' at CB

Among Arizona’s position groups with the most turnover in personnel in the offseason, cornerback was near the top of the list.

The Wildcats lost their headliner Tacario Davis, who transferred to Washington, along with several others to the transfer portal, and signed seven scholarship newcomers at cornerback between the transfer portal, high school and junior college levels.

Additionally, Arizona is without defensive backs guru Duane Akina after the coaching veteran left for a similar role at Texas, which will most likely be the final coaching stint for the 68-year-old Akina.

With former linebackers coach Danny Gonzales replacing Akina at defensive coordinator, “there are similarities and there are some differences” in pass and run coverages with Arizona’s defensive backs.

“Not a ton either way. I will say, it’s all going to be based on the play-caller and what he calls,” said Arizona cornerbacks coach Chip Viney. “I always say that coverage is universal, so these guys aren’t in coverages they’ve never run before, we may call it something different. It’s like learning a new language. ... There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

Arizona’s cornerbacks are “not a finished product, but I’m really impressed with how the new guys have come in and picked up the system, our verbiage and transitioning into the Wildcat family,” Viney said.

“I’m really pleased with where we are, but we’re nowhere we want to be,” said Viney. “The standard is very high, just the tradition of DB play at Arizona, and that’s something we introduced these guys to. We’re nowhere near where we want to be. We’re continuing to take advantage of every opportunity we get every day.”

‘Steady Eddie’

One unique part of the transfer portal is it sometimes leads to coaches and players reuniting.

Former San Jose State cornerback Jay’Vion Cole, who redshirted this past season at Texas, transferred to Arizona to reunite with Viney and Arizona head coach Brent Brennan, who recruited Cole to San Jose State from Cal Poly.

The 5-10, 191-pound Cole starred at McClymonds High School in Oakland, California, the same school that produced NBA legend Bill Russell, hip-hop artist MC Hammer and UA running backs coach Alonzo Carter. New Arizona cornerback Michael Dansby was Cole’s teammate at McClymonds, San Jose State and the UA.

Cole began his college journey at Cal Poly, an FCS program in Central California.

“In the world of the transfer portal, there are a lot of high school seniors that often get overlooked,” Viney said. “I’d say he was one of those young men. At the time, he had options but Cal Poly was the best fit for him. The thing I’d argue for him is that he’s been productive everywhere he’s been. ... The kid knows how to make plays that way.”

In three seasons, Cole has 54 tackles, 14 pass deflections and eight interceptions at Cal Poly, San Jose State and Texas. Playing at San Jose State in 2023 was a challenge, “because I felt like it was too close to home.”

Be careful what you wish for.

“Going to Texas, I feel like it was hard being on a team full of Texas guys,” Cole said. “It was hard to adapt. There were about 10 of us from Cali. We stuck with each other, but from a social aspect, I’m not the most talkative guy.”

Cole played in one game for the Longhorns, a 51-3 win over Louisiana Monroe, and had an interception. After transferring to Arizona, the redshirt junior is now at his fourth school in as many years.

“I feel like every place I’ve been to has been a stepping stone, especially me going to Texas last year,” Cole said. “It was a learning opportunity for me. Even though I didn’t get on the field as much, it helped me overall.”

When Cole entered the transfer portal after the 2024 season, re-joining Viney and Brennan was “better for me opportunity-wise if I want to play at the next level,” said the cornerback.

“Once he got back in the portal, we knew we’d have a shot at him, and we were in need obviously,” Viney said. “We hit him up and rekindled that flame, per se.”

With any recruit in the transfer portal, Viney made sure to do his due diligence.

“I gotta know why you’re in the portal in the first place,” Viney said. “I need to know why you made the first move, the second move ... and the third move. Those are serious conversations. I tell them on the front end, ‘I’m going to ask your coach. Most of the time I know who your coach is, and we’re going to ask the hard and tough questions.’ ... There are guys who choose to leave when things are hard — well, life is hard.

“I believe our jobs are to convince young men that life is hard, football is hard and you can do hard things. I have those hard conversations and most of the young men I’ve encountered in the recruiting process, especially the young men that we have here, to some extent, they were looking for a fresh start. They’re hungry, they’re looking to come prove themselves and those are the guys we want in this program.”

With a clean slate at Arizona, Cole has consistently been in the mix at one of the Wildcats’ starting cornerback spots. He’s garnered the nickname “Steady Eddie” from Viney.

“He’s a young man that shows up every day and is always ready to work,” Vine said. “Jay’Vion has grown tremendously in not just physically, but the mental capacity and football IQ part of the game. He’s a young man that we’re really pleased with thus far. ... He’s a young man that takes advantage of all of his opportunities every single day.”

Fitting in at Arizona “was pretty easy” for Cole.

“I fit right in with these guys,” he said. “We joke around, I joke around, sometimes it gets serious, but we love each other.”

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Bone marrow donor Garnes ‘can play multiple spots’

Redshirt senior defensive back and West Virginia transfer Ayden Garnes has been used at slot cornerback — or nickel back — this spring as defensive captain and starter Treydan Stukes recovers from the season-ending ACL injury he suffered in the Big 12 opener against Utah.

Stanford transfer Jshawn Frausto-Ramos has also earned reps at slot cornerback.

Garnes “can play multiple spots in our secondary,” Viney said.

The 6-foot, 176-pound Garnes, a Philadelphia native, started at Duquesne, an FCS school in Pittsburgh. Following three seasons with the Dukes, Garnes transferred to West Virginia. In his lone season with the Mountaineers, Garnes had 25 tackles and a pass deflection.

Garnes said he played 90% of his defensive snaps at nickel back for Duquesne and 75% at boundary corner. In his last season playing a majority of the snaps at nickel back, Garnes received an 87.4 defensive grade by Pro Football Focus; he also had a 90.1 coverage grade.

Garnes was sold on playing in Arizona’s defensive secondary after his official visit, which was the only one he took.

“I’m not the guy who needs to go to a thousand places to be on vacation,” Garnes said. “If it’s home and this is where I want to be, that’s where I want to be. This was my first visit and that’s where I wanted to go.”

Garnes is widely known for his contributions off the field, when he donated bone marrow to a woman two years ago as a result of Duquesne’s annual “Be The Match” drive, which the defensive back called “one of the biggest blessings I put on this Earth.”

The Arizona football program is helping Garnes organize a bone marrow drive for April 30. The morning session on April 30 will be strictly for UA student-athletes and the afternoon session to recruit non-athletes will take place on the UA mall from noon to 4 p.m.

“He has inspired me,” Viney said of Garnes. “He’s just different that way. There was something special about him when we started to recruit him. ... How he carried himself when he was here, the conversations we had about ball, the things around ball, this was a young man we wanted in our program, especially our secondary. ... He has that light about himself.”

TLC kept MGK in Tucson

When Viney’s kids were in the middle of unwrapping Christmas gifts, Arizona cornerback Marquis Groves-Killebrew called Viney to inform him about entering the transfer portal.

Groves-Killebrew started six games for the Wildcats this past season and was in line to start in Arizona’s secondary this season. He split starts with second-year cornerback Emmanuel Karnley, who transferred to Miami. Groves-Killebrew committed to Nebraska, but made an about-face.

“For a lot of these guys, you have to let them go see and test the waters a little bit,” Viney said. “I know that sounds crazy, but we were confident in what we had here that we would get that opportunity (to keep Groves-Killebrew). In that moment, we weren’t going to stop the decision that was made.”

In 2022, Groves-Killebrew signed with Texas A&M as a four-star recruit after starring at Atlanta-area North Cobb High School in Kennesaw, Georgia.

Groves-Killebrew appeared in three games at Texas A&M before transferring to Louisville, where he spent the first roughly dozen years of his life before moving to Atlanta. Groves-Killebrew “was homesick and wanted to go home,” he said last August, so he transferred to Louisville for one season, before trekking to Tucson for his redshirt sophomore season at the UA. In six starts, Groves-Killebrew had 26 tackles, four pass deflections and one stop for loss for the Wildcats in 2024.

If he stuck with his Nebraska commitment, the Cornhuskers would’ve been his fourth school in as many years. Groves-Killebrew, who changed his jersey number from 20 to 5, “retained communication” with Gonzales and Akina, which ultimately brought him back to Arizona.

“I think Marquis really found a program in us that loved him and cared about him,” Viney said. “Ultimately, that’s what helped him decide to stay here. That’s hard in today’s world.”

‘Coach Stukes’

Stukes’ knee injury has been a “blessing in disguise” for multiple reasons for the Wildcats. One of them: the four-game redshirt rule preserved an additional year of eligibility for the redshirt senior.

Stukes has also shouldered a player-coach role as he continues rehab, a title he’s had since suffering the injury.

“He knew his knee was blown out and he’s fighting off the training staff to get out and help us coach and help lead his team,” Viney said. “He got one of the worst news you could get as a guy who is projected to be one of the better defensive backs in college football. I tease him all the time and tell him, ‘You’re going to be Coach Stukes for the next several months here, so embrace it.’ He’s been all of that.”

Added Viney: “I wish we had more like him. I wish we could keep him forever, but we can’t. ... It’s been awesome having him lead from the sideline, especially with a lot of new faces in the secondary.”

Like Garnes, Stukes has experience at cornerback from his first three seasons at Arizona, but has excelled at nickel back since 2023.

“Once we add him back into the fold, we’re going to have something special,” Viney said. “Again, and I’ll continue to say it, we are no finished product, but we like where we are and the work we’re putting in. Stukes has been awesome leading the secondary in that way.”