USA Today College Football Countdown: #26 Arizona

Paul Myerberg previews the team of our old friend, Rich Rodriguez, and his Arizona Wildcats (LINK).

USA Today college football countdown: #51 Arizona

USA Today previews the Arizona Wildcats, a team that interests me because Rich Rodriguez is there. I'm sorry if you want to move on and don't care. Actually, no, I'm not.

Hit the jump if you like girls in Arizona shirts with short shorts.

Pre-Snap Read: #71 Arizona

Arizona girls are easy on the eyes.

I might be in the minority, but I'm sure I'm not the only Michigan fan interested in seeing how Rich Rodriguez does in Arizona.  The blog Pre-Snap Read  previews the 2012 Arizona Wildcats.

Ex-Wolverine Update: Rodriguez Gets His Man in Jeff Casteel

Arizona looks like a wonderful place to live

Former Michigan head coach Rich Rodriguez finally got the defensive coordinator he wanted all along in the form of Jeff Casteel, the former head of the defense at West Virginia.  Casteel's absence in Ann Arbor has been discussed ad nauseum as perhaps Rodriguez's biggest failure during his tenure as Michigan's head man.  Casteel will presumably run Rodriguez's favored 3-3-5, and someone with an actual clue about how it works - not Scott Shafer and not Greg Robinson - might have a chance at being successful.

Arizona also announced the hirings of Bill Kirelawach (defensive line), David Lockwood (cornerbacks), and Spencer Leftwich (tight ends).  Kiralewach was Rodriguez's defensive line coach in Morgantown.  Lockwood coached WVU's cornerbacks from 2008-2011, which was after Rodriguez had left, but the two crossed paths back in 1989 when both were assistants at WVU.  Leftwich was Tulsa's offensive line coach in 2010, when former Rodriguez assistant Todd Graham was the head coach there (Graham has since moved on to Pitt and now Arizona State).

These coaches join former Michigan assistants Calvin Magee, Tony Dews, Tony Gibson, and Rod Smith, along with strength and conditioning coach Chris Allen.

Rich Rodriguez, Arizona Wildcat

Rich Rodriguez

Former Michigan head coach Rich Rodriguez has been hired as the new head coach at Arizona.  The news was announced Monday evening, and he will be introduced by the athletic director on Wednesday.  From the press release on Arizona's website:

Rodriguez carries a career college coaching record of 120-84-2 in 18 seasons, marked by Division I records of 60-26 at West Virginia from 2001-2006 and 15-22 at Michigan, where he coached from 2008-10. He began his coaching career at Salem in 1988 and then coached at Glenville State from 1990-96. He has worked as a CBS Sports football analyst this year.

Rodriguez' West Virginia teams were Big East Champion four seasons - 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007, appearing in two BCS bowls, the 2005 Sugar Bowl with a victory over Georgia for an 11-1 record and a loss to Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl to finish 10-2. His 2006 club finished 11-2 after a victory over Georgia Tech in the Gator Bowl.

 I want to wish Coach Rodriguez, his family, and the Arizona Wildcats program well in the coming years.  I always felt badly for Rodriguez, his family, his colleagues, and his players when he was at Michigan.  His name was unjustly dragged through the mud by West Virginia before he even started coaching in Ann Arbor, and a lot of Michigan fans, players, alumni, and critics never gave him a chance.  Tuned-in Michigan fans knew this well before the release of John U. Bacon's book Three and Out in October, but Rodriguez was doomed from the beginning when he began work in Ann Arbor.

This is not to say that Rodriguez didn't make mistakes of his own.  He did, and those have been well documented.  The biggest mistake he made was failing to win games, and that was a direct result of hiring defensive coaches who were either incompetent or a poor fit with the rest of the staff.  When your football team is allowing 35 points a game in your third season as head coach, then something is wrong.  There was no reason to believe that the defense would have improved in 2011 and, therefore, he needed to go.

Regardless of how Rodriguez fared in Ann Arbor, he runs an offense that can work anywhere in college football.  There will be struggles in Tucson like there were at his last job, because the Wildcats are not a team prepared to play spread option football.  The roster includes purely pro-style quarterbacks, including Pennsylvanian Tom Savage, who was heavily interested in Michigan a few years ago but whose interest was not reciprocated.  Starting quarterback Nick Foles is slow-footed like Ryan Mallett, although Foles is a senior and will be gone by 2012.  The Wildcats have two quarterbacks currently committed for the class of 2012, but both are pro-style kids and I would guess that neither one will end up signing with Arizona in February.

Much like when Rodriguez came to Michigan, he will either be starting a true freshman "athlete" at quarterback (recruited out of Florida, most likely) or a pro-style kid who's ill suited to the spread option but willing to give it a go.  Furthermore, every receiver on the roster is 6'0" or taller - although there's a 5'10" kid named Jarrell Bennett (with dreadlocks, no less) who might be the Martavious Odoms of the Arizona Wildcats; the first highlight on Bennett's Rivals.com film is of him blocking a cornerback into the ground.

As Rodriguez mentioned in Three and Out, when a coach builds a program, there are several steps: first you lose big, then you lose close, then you win close, and then you win big.  I'll be rooting for the Wildcats to skip a couple of those steps . . . but if they don't, I'll be rooting for Rodriguez to be given enough time to hit that fourth stage.

Good luck, Coach.