Unless the printer omitted a page, there is no bio of Arizona Wildcats starting defensive end Justin Belknap in the school’s 2016 media guide.
Not a word.
“It’s not my department to talk about that stuff,” says Belknap, a 6-foot-2-inch, 245-pound redshirt freshman from Henderson, Nevada.
Belknap chose to attend Arizona over offers from … from … nobody.
“Not really,” says Belknap. “I guess I could’ve walked on at UNLV.”
Belknap has more tackles-for-loss, 2½, than he had recruiting stars next to his name as a senior at Coronado High School.
You’ve heard of Two-Star Scooby Wright? Meet No-Star Justin Belknap.
“Justin has a high motor, and I love high motors,” says UA defensive line coach Vince Amey. “He’s got a great football IQ. That’s what I love about him.”
Belknap lines up next to Arizona’s starting nose guard, junior Parker Zellers, who was an unrecruited, no-star prospect from Scottsdale Notre Dame Prep in 2013. Both weigh roughly 245 pounds, which is probably 50 pounds per man below the desired Pac-12 weight of a defensive lineman.
Zellers was hopeful he would get a chance to play at Iowa State — his parents are from Iowa — but the Cyclones didn’t bite.
“Those guys, Justin and Parker, don’t care how big they are or how big the guy they’re playing against is,” says Amey. “I love them to death.”
If college football was based on a Beatles song — “All You Need Is Love,” for example — the Wildcats would probably be ranked as high as No. 9 Washington.
But this is reality: The Seattle Times, which covers UW football as thoroughly as any newspaper covers Pac-12 football, recently wrote that the Huskies’ defensive line could be “the best in school history.”
Can that be right? In 1991, Washington had the nation’s most dominating defensive lineman, All-American Steve Emtman, as the Huskies won the national co-championship and led the NCAA by limiting opponents to 9.2 points per game.
Best in history?
In size and stature, Washington’s starting defensive line could be mistaken for that of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Nose guard Greg Gaines is 6-2, 318.
End Vita Vea is 6-5, 332.
Tackle Elijah Qualls is 6-1, 321.
So far, the three beasts of Washington’s Purple Reign 2.0 have 11 cumulative quarterback sacks. Arizona’s entire defense has seven.
Belknap and Zellers are packaged on Arizona’s defensive line with senior Sani Fuimaono, who is listed at 6-1, 270. Fuimaono said he lost about 40 pounds in the offseason.
It’s unfortunate Zellers and Belknap couldn’t find the 40 pounds Fuimaono lost.
Nevertheless, Arizona enters the Pac-12 season with the smallest starting defensive line at Arizona in at least 25 years, and maybe longer. If Amey is cowed by it, if Belknap is worried, it doesn’t show.
“I don’t think we’re limited,” says Amey. “I think we can do anything anybody else can do. I truly believe it, and so do Justin and Parker. They believe they are winners, and so do I. These are two tough kids. Two very smart kids.”
Amey used to be a tough kid. Now he’s a tough coach. No one on the UA coaching staff has overcome more to become a college coach than Vince Amey.
For openers, he’s from Arizona State. He is believed to be the only ex-Sun Devil athlete to become a full-time Arizona coach in history. What are the odds? Arizona softball coach Mike Candrea graduated from ASU but was not an athlete there. Former UA head football coach Ed Doherty was earlier ASU’s head coach but was never a student in Tempe.
Amey, 41, spent three years as a UA strength and conditioning coach and another year as an analyst on Rich Rodriguez’s staff. When the coaching spot became vacant nine months ago, the applicants included the greatest linebacker in school history, Hall of Famer Ricky Hunley, who had not only coached at USC, Missouri and Florida, but for the NFL’s Redskins, Bengals and Raiders.
RichRod hired Amey, who had never coached a down of college football.
“We’ve had some pool parties at Vince’s house, and he shows us his office with all the ASU stuff; rings and jerseys and Rose Bowl stuff,” says Belknap. “But that was a long time (1994-97) ago.”
College football coaching is a small world. When Amey played for ASU’s 1996 Pac-10 championship team, his defensive line coach was Kevin Wolthausen, who had helped to coach Hunley at Arizona and was on the Wildcat staff from 1983-86.
“ASU was the right place at the right time for me,” says Amey. “I got recruited by Oregon, Colorado and BYU but not a nibble from Arizona. And now I’m here. When my D-line guys come over to the house I show them my ASU stuff, and they give me a hard time, but I use it as a teaching moment. I tell them, ‘If you work hard, you can have a room like this someday, too.’ ”
If you’ve successfully made the switch from Sun Devils to Wildcats, how daunting can it be to play the No. 9 Huskies?
Twenty years ago Wednesday, Amey was part of a stifling ASU defense that shocked No. 1 Nebraska 19-0, breaking the Cornhuskers’ 26-game winning streak and propelling the Sun Devils to the Rose Bowl.
Now Amey and his new team face the Big Bad Huskies. Can history repeat?
Belknap, who is not yet on scholarship, has a two-word description of the Huskies.
“They’re ginormous,” he says.
David, meet Goliath.
