Competition at safety 'a very healthy situation' for Arizona Wildcats' football team

When Jedd Fisch was asked about the most notable position competition entering preseason training camp, the Arizona head coach said, “the safety position is a wide open battle right now.”

Two weeks later, both safety spots remain “one of our bigger competitions, for sure,” Fisch said after Arizona’s most recent scrimmage this past Saturday.

UA safeties coach Chuck Cecil said, “it’s a very healthy situation,” and the Wildcats “have five or six guys that are worthy of being starting safeties for us this year.”

“The thing is: They know that,” Cecil said. “It’s not top secret, and so it’s something that they have to go out during camp ... and ‘You have to put that on tape. You guys determine that, not us.’ That’s not top secret. They all know what the situation is.”

After free safety Jaxen Turner transferred to UNLV and Christian Young, who started all 24 games — 12 at “Viper” linebacker and 12 at strong safety — his final two seasons at the UA, ran out of eligibility, the Wildcats were in the market to replace two starters at safety in 2023, but had plenty of optimism from returning players. Cornerback Treydan Stukes converted to “Boundary” safety — or nickel back (slot cornerback) — in the spring. The Wildcats also added UCLA transfer Martell Irby, who was committed to the UA until former head coach Rich Rodriguez was fired after the 2017 season. Irby stepped away from football last season for mental health reasons. Fisch said Irby’s leadership and maturity “are through the roof.”

“Talk about embracing (his role),” Fisch said of Irby. “’Hey, I want to be a great special teams player, I’m going to embrace it. I want to impact the game any way I can, embrace it.’ He has a maturity about himself — he’s older. He’s been through some things. He thought football was over for him, and he came back as a walk-on, paying for it himself just to be a part of this.

“Our guys have really embraced Martell.”

Juniors Gunner Maldonado and DJ Warnell, whom both started at nickel back last season, along with redshirt sophomores Isaiah Taylor and Dalton Johnson, are among the returners from the 2022 season hopeful to start at the free safety and strong safety spots, while true freshman Genesis Smith “is definitely one of the guys that’s in the starting mix” at free safety as a lengthy centerfielder in the secondary, according to Cecil.

Smith, a 6-2, 200-pound Chandler native and former Hamilton High School ballhawk, was an early enrollee in Arizona’s 2023 recruiting class and participated in spring ball.

“I don’t see him as a freshman,” Arizona defensive coordinator Johnny Nansen said of Smith. “He looks like a veteran guy who’s been in the system for a long time.”

Warnell, a former UCLA Bruin, was a standout on the Wildcats’ special teams units and started two games at nickel back in 2022. Johnson, who is one of three scholarship players from Arizona’s 2021 early recruiting period, became a mainstay for the Wildcats as a box safety in the spring alongside Taylor, the son of Hall of Fame linebacker Jason Taylor.

The younger Taylor had the fourth-best defensive rating (68.8) for Arizona, according to Pro Football Focus. Taylor, who made the game-sealing interception in the Territorial Cup showdown against Arizona State, has been among the top interceptors in the spring and training camp.

Maldonado transferred from Northwestern in 2021 as a safety, then converted to nickel back in Nansen’s first season, logging two forced fumbled in the final three games of the season; he also had 15 starts in two seasons at the UA. PFF gave Maldonado a 50.9 defensive rating last season. Maldonado and Taylor started at safety in Arizona’s scrimmage on Saturday. Throughout training camp, any of the five aforementioned players have rotated taking starter snaps — and all of them had a role in Arizona’s dollar-package defense that featured seven defensive backs.

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Nansen said the Wildcats are “rotating guys every day to see who’s gonna stand out ... and play for us.”

Added Fisch: “Guys are constantly figuring out who’s going to be our field safety, our boundary safety, ‘Do we need to play more than two guys, so we need to rotate them in. Do we keep them fresher that way?’ Right now, none of them have really separated themselves to become the one, the top guy, and no one has separated themselves and dropped off the list.

“So no one has bottomed out or no one has hit that ceiling yet, so it’s a good thing we have three more weeks of camp, because right now, I don’t know who’d we start.”

New Arizona defensive backs assistant Duane Akina said the common denominator with the Wildcats’ safeties is their ability to absorb new information and concepts.

“When I say, ‘Hey, safeties, we’ve gotta be in the middle of the field,’ we go out and watch the tape the next day, I see it happening,” Akina said. “When I’m talking in a room, I’ve seen us trying to correct what we (identified) the day before. If we continue to do that, and we trust the coaching, trust the process that you’re building in two-a-days, I’m really encouraged with that.

“When you don’t have confidence in the teacher or whatever it may be, you got issues. I really appreciate the defensive backs for embracing what we’re trying to do here. Everything is not perfect. I’ve done this for 42 years, I’m hunting the perfect practice, hunting the perfect game, and I haven’t found it yet.”

Akina jokingly said he wants a resolution to Arizona’s safety battle by “yesterday,” but he also sees the silver lining to the scenario: Iron sharpening iron.

“Good news about that, every place I’m at, you want competition,” Akina said. “Competition keeps raising the standard. ... It’s very healthy, which is what you want. ... They’re all going to play. They all bring some different value.”

Extra points

Cecil, on 6-2, 220-pound freshman safety and Hawaii product Gavin Hunter: “Gavin has done a lot of great things and he might be in the mix at (nickel back) for us right now. Moving forward, he’ll know and learn the other safety positions as well.”

Akina, 66, on how he’s able to maintain so much energy and passion while coaching: “I’m just blessed that my profession is a hobby. I’ve just stumbled on a hobby that I love. I’m around young people with goals, that keeps me young. I’m involved in a game that’s an intellectual man’s game that you can transfer knowledge to younger people. I’m really an educator is what I am, I just get to teach a really cool subject. And it’s like recess when I get in between these white lines. I can’t do this anywhere else. I get to run around, act a fool during practice. Before games, that adrenaline that you get. There’s nothing like a victor’s locker room postgame. I’ve been very blessed. As long as I can help — in some small way — the University of Arizona, I’ll continue to do it.”