With Tuesday’s official release of the inaugural Pac-12 preseason media poll, Arizona Wildcats football fans may want to start tempering their expectations for the 2011 season.
The Wildcats were picked to finish fourth…in the Pac-12 South. A division in which Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Cal, and Washington are not a part of.
Finishing seventh in poll points there is no way to sugar coat it. After enjoying three consecutive winning seasons, Arizona could be looking at .500 or worse.
It’s nearly impossible to rank which issue might negatively impact Arizona the most, but the difficult stretch of tough competition to start the season may have a slight edge.
Throw in Oregon State in Corvallis the weekend after that and the Wildcats will have their work cut out for them. A rocky start could wreck morale and end the season by Halloween.
It’s because of this challenging start that any problems the Wildcats do have will be magnified.
Football injuries pile up for every football team but the Wildcats have already lost four players for the season due to ACL tears and training camp hasn’t even begun yet.
Started eight games, played in 13.
2010 stats: 58 tackles, 7.5 TFL, 2.0 sacks, 2 pass def, a fumble recovery
Started eight games, played in 13.
Started one game, played in 13.
Played in 10 games.
With an already thin roster Arizona can’t afford any more injuries if they expect to remain competitive all season.
Almost as bad as losing players to injury, The Wildcats have had four defensive linemen drafted in the last two years.
OLB/DE Ricky Elmore (6th round, Green Bay Packers)
OLB/DE D’Aundre Reed (7th round, Minnesota Vikings)
Replacing that much NFL talent in such a short period of time is nearly impossible for any program and Arizona is no different.
Of the eight-man, two-deep D-Line depth chart, the Wildcats return only two players with starts under their belt (Justin Washington – 9 and Sione Tuihalamaka – 4).
Making matters worse for the defense, only two returning linebackers have ever started a game for Arizona (Derek Earls – 12 and Paul Vassallo – 13).
The same goes for the secondary. Senior defensive backs Robert Golden and Trevin Wade make up a majority of the backfield’s starts.
For a unit that lost six contributors between spring injuries and the draft, the learning curve was going to be steep for the defense regardless of scheduling, but with the most difficult portion of the schedule coming first, each mistake could hurt that much more.
Speaking of mistake that might hurt, Wildcats signal caller, Nick Foles, will be dropping back to pass behind an entirely new offensive line.
Similar to the defense, Arizona’s offense is a logjam of players at the skill positions and bare cupboards along the line.
Of the ten players on the two-deep, only one has started a game. Junior center, Kyle Quinn started ONE game in 2010.
The good news in that one game was the last game (Alamo Bowl) so Quinn got a taste of what to expect all season.
Quinn is one of four juniors on the unit. With only four upperclassman linemen on the squad, the Wildcats may be starting multiple freshman on opening day.
Arizona was one of the best teams in the country last year when it came to sacks allowed, but even the all senior line gave up plenty of shots on Foles including 32 sacks and one late knee-roll by a WSU defender to sidelines the quarterback for a pair of games.
The Wildcats high-flying, pass-happy offense won’t be able to get off the ground if Arizona’s young blockers can’t come together in the trenches.
The offensive linemen aren’t the only Wildcats with a ton of pressure riding on them to produce if Arizona hopes to survive the September gauntlet.
After missing a few “kicks which we do not speak of” last season…Alex Zendejas is on a short leash to start the year.
In 2010, Zendejas missed field goals of 37 and 34 yards in losses decided by three points or less, followed by two blocked extra points in a 29-30 two-overtime loss to ASU to finish the regular season on a four-game losing streak.
The Wildcats have botched eight extra point attempts in two years.
In case anyone was still a Zendejas supporter, the junior kicker ended the season connecting on just one of three attempts in the Alamo Bowl.
Although it’s a new season, the senior isn’t exactly getting a fresh start.
JuCo transfer, Jamie Salazar, was brought in to compete for the job with Zendejas and senior kickoff specialist, John Bonano.
With the tough stretch of games to begin the year, more than likely Zendejas will be forced to pick up where he left off last season, staring down the pipes at game-changing, pressure-packed kicks.
His year along with the rest of the Wildcats' could be over by mid-season if 2010’s issues become 2011’s.
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