Hansen's Sunday Notebook: RichRod, Cats facing major questions as training camp opens
- Updated
Star sports columnist Greg Hansen offers his opinion on recent sports news.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Rich Rodriguez begins his fifth Arizona football training camp Thursday with no star power, the most inexperienced defensive coaching staff in the Pac-12 and a six-game death march to open the conference season.
Is it any wonder he pursued the coaching vacancy at South Carolina a few weeks before Christmas? Even when Mike Stoops was fired midway through the 2011 season, Arizona had more available and game-ready talent than RichRod’s fifth UA team.
The first of 20 training camp sessions begins Thursday night, with three colossal issues:
1. RichRod says that fourth-year junior Anu Solomon is not necessarily the starting quarterback. If that’s true, if little-used sophomore Brandon Dawkins legitimately has a chance to be the starter Sept. 3 against BYU, the Wildcats will rank No. 12 in QB rankings in the Conference of Quarterbacks. If Solomon remains healthy and isn’t the starter — if his 25 career starts, 44 touchdown passes and 6,448 yards are washed away — then Arizona is in some real trouble with the problems that run much deeper than a not-ready-for-prime-time defense. Possible solution: Solomon regains full command of the offense and junior receiver Cam Denson has the speed and elusiveness to spread the field and change the dynamics of the offense.
2. Arizona did not have a first-team All-Pac-12 selection in 2015 and isn’t likely to have one in 2016, either. The top grouping on the roster is at receiver; Samajie Grant, Nate Phillips and Trey Griffey are useful, experienced players, but none are NFL prospects or break-away threats. There is no true game-changer on the roster, offense or defense. How does anyone beat Stanford or USC or UCLA without star power? If things go well, it’s possible Arizona could have a capable offensive line, behind Jacob Alsadek, Layth Friekh, Freddie Tagaloa and Gerhard De Beer. That’s the minimum expectation to break .500 in the Pac-12. Possible solution: Alsadek becomes an all-star, and junior tailback Nick Wilson remains healthy, plays with abandon and matches his 1,375-yard freshman season.
3. Although recent defensive departures of linebacker Derrick Turituri, lineman Anthony Fotu and pass-rusher Josh Allen were not much of a surprise, the UA is so thin defensively that finding Pac-12-ready replacements is unlikely. What else can go wrong? Not much. The lack of depth and talent on defense, which happens periodically in many mid-level football programs like Arizona, has been a selection problem. The lack of recruiting/evaluation success under former Arizona defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel was such that the Wildcats defense might not hit bottom until 2017 or even later. Possible solution: As UA opponents likely gain more than 6,000 yards for a third consecutive season, fans show patience, continue to buy tickets, and believe that someday soon the Wildcats will surely go to the Rose Bowl.
The outlook for Arizona’s 2016 football season reminds me of sitting on the runway on a delayed flight bound for home. The pilot interrupts the anticipation by saying, “ladies and gentlemen, I have good news and bad news. … We’re eventually going to get you home, but first we must return to the gate for some repairs.”
This isn’t a make or break year for RichRod. His contract runs through 2020, with the possibility of earning more than $15 million. But his patience, coaching ability, roster management and organizational skills will be tested like never before.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
The Pima County Sports Hall of Fame will introduce its Class of 2016 in a midday press conference Friday at the DoubleTree Hotel. The 15-person class includes Vance Johnson, one of the most intriguing athletes in Tucson history. The Cholla High School grad was not only an All-Pac-10 running back at Arizona, but won the 1982 NCAA long-jump championship and was 3 inches from making Team USA at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. He was such a gifted athlete that the Denver Broncos drafted him No. 31 overall in 1985, switched him to wide receiver and he became a success, helping the Broncos to three Super Bowls. Johnson, 53, lives in Palm Beach, Florida, working as an advocate for addiction recovery. Also among the PCSHF’s newest class is Cleo Robinson, a Marana High School grad, part of one of Tucson’s most successful sports families in history. Robinson became one of college football’s top officials, working in the Pac-12 for two decades.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
After 13 successful baseball coaching seasons at Sahuaro High School, Mark Chandler last week made a rare jump: He will be the new head coach at rival Sabino High School. Chandler was 248-133 in his 13 Sahuaro seasons, coaching major-league lefty Pat McCoy and outfielder Alex Verdugo, who last year was named the top hitting prospect in the Los Angeles Dodgers system.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Tim Derksen capped his terrific high school and college basketball career last week by signing to play for EuroLeague’s Marin-Peixegalego of Spain’s Gold League. Derksen, who led Amphitheater High School to the 2011 state championship and 2010 title game, scored 1,437 points in four seasons for the San Francisco Dons, finishing 13th on the school’s career scoring list. Derksen will leave for Spain later this month.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
The Tucson Summer Pro League’s All-Star Game will be held at 1 p.m., Sunday at the Gregory School. Among those in the game is Mark Simmons, who played on those state power basketball teams of Santa Rita’s Jim Ferguson and guard Terrell Stoglin in 2009 and 2010. Simmons was a starter at Cochise College before playing one season, averaging 4.1 points per game, at St. Mary’s of Texas.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
The first high school football game in Arizona this season will be the compelling neighborhood rivalry, Jay Campos’ Sabino Sabercats versus Scott McKee’s Sahuaro Cougars on Thursday, August 18, at Sabino, 7:30 p.m. It is the feature game in Tucson’s annual Coaches for Charity Kickoff Classic. Former Arizona All-Pac-12 linebacker and NFL Pro Bowl standout Lance Briggs will be the keynote speaker at the Saturday, Aug. 13 luncheon, at noon at the DoubleTree Hotel. Coaches from Sabino, Sahuaro, Sunnyside, Pueblo, Rincon, Tucson, Nogales and Buena will be featured at the luncheon. Ticket information: coachesforcharity.org. Two more early games of the must-watch group: Dennis Bene’s Salpointe Catholic Lancers will host Mountain View on August 26. That’s the same night Jeff Scurran’s Catalina Foothills Falcons open at home against Tempe High School.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Arizona State’s basketball program last week produced a marketing poster that packaged incoming freshman forward Sam Cunliffe with three of the top Sun Devil basketball players of the last 20 years — James Harden, Ike Diogu and Jahii Carson. Arizona would never do that, in part because it doesn’t need the attention or publicity leading up to the season, and it puts a ton of unnecessary pressure on young Mr. Cunliffe. Bobby Hurley has unquestionably recruited well in his first year and a half in Tempe, but Cunliffe probably isn’t one of the five or 10 leading recruits entering the Pac-12. My top three: Washington point guard Markelle Fultz, UCLA’s Lonzo Ball and Arizona’s Lauri Markkanen. In seven games in the FIBA U20 European Championships, Markkanen averaged 24.9 points, 8.6 rebounds while shooting 50 percent overall and 83 percent from the foul line. Unfortunately, his Finnish teammates were awful; the club finished 15th of 16 teams in the tournament.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
The Pac-12 would be wise to follow the ACC’s decision to expand the conference season to 20 games (in 2019). That much hit home last week when the Pac-12 announced its 2016-17 conference schedule; Arizona does not play Oregon in Tucson, or Utah in Salt Lake City. Those are two of the marquee games of the year that fans won’t get to see. Instead, the league is stuffed with cupcake after cupcake in bloated home nonconference schedules.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Arizona baseball coach Jay Johnson, a tireless recruiter, has a commitment from the top Casa Grande prospect in the last several decades. Lefty pitcher Gil Luna has committed to play at Arizona. Luna struck out 138 batters in just 64 innings for Casa Grande High School last year, including an epic performance of 19 strikeouts against rival Vista Grande. Now Johnson will have to worry about Luna’s status in the June 2017 MLB draft.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
In 12 AAU basketball games this summer, from California to Las Vegas to Chicago, Tucson Rattlers forward Kiya Dorroh emerged as a Division I prospect. She attends Magee Middle School. That’s how it works in modern college basketball.
Dorroh won’t graduate from high school until the spring of 2021. Is that too early? Arizona softball coach Mike Candrea has a commitment from Class of 2020 outfielder Giulia Koutsoyanopulos; he successfully recruited her last summer, when she played for the 12U Orange County Batbusters.
Dorroh benefited from playing for coach Chris Klassen’s Tucson Rattlers, one of the respected AAU basketball programs. The former Palo Verde High School coach, a PVHS grad who was a point guard at William Penn College in Iowa, has operated the Tucson Rattlers since 2008. Among those who “graduated” from the Rattlers is Pima College point guard Sydni Stallworth, a first team NJCAA All-American last season.
The days of taking a summer off and maintaining a spot on a good high school team ended long ago. For example, Bill Lang’s highly-regarded Ironwood Ridge volleyball team this summer had eight weeks of conditioning, and spent eight days competing in the Long Beach State volleyball camp and UA coach Dave Rubio’s camp.
Klassen’s travel team will return to the AAU road next month in Anaheim. Last week, Ironwood Ridge’s Natalie Bartle, Cienega’s Kelsey Siemons and Lauren Green and Rincon/University’s Tatiana Nzeukou, part of the Rattlers 5-0 success, were scouted by college coaches.
Since 2011, Klassen’s Rattlers have helped 27 girls earn college basketball scholarships.
- Greg Hansen
- Updated
Florida’s search for an athletic director to replace high-profile Jeremy Foley, who will retire October 1, took a significant turn recently.
The Gators announced that Foley’s two leading associate ADs, Mike Hill and Chip Howard, will not be considered as Foley’s replacement.
Unlike USC and Texas, which filled AD vacancies this year with Trojan and Longhorn blood, the Gators will scour the country for the best possible fit.
That likely puts Arizona AD Greg Byrne on a list of those the Gators will vet and examine.
One of the positives for anyone being considered as the job is that the Gators have an annual athletic budget of close to $150 million, or about double Arizona’s budget. The new Florida AD will not have to count nickels and dimes any more.
Florida, for example, will pay its assistant football coaches $4.23 million in 2016. That’s about double what Arizona football assistants are paid.
Florida is one of four or five schools that can offer a prospective AD a contract that is virtually impossible to turn down, doubling the salary of Byrne or anyone it targets.
- Greg Hansen
Rich Rodriguez begins his fifth Arizona football training camp Thursday with no star power, the most inexperienced defensive coaching staff in the Pac-12 and a six-game death march to open the conference season.
Is it any wonder he pursued the coaching vacancy at South Carolina a few weeks before Christmas? Even when Mike Stoops was fired midway through the 2011 season, Arizona had more available and game-ready talent than RichRod’s fifth UA team.
The first of 20 training camp sessions begins Thursday night, with three colossal issues:
1. RichRod says that fourth-year junior Anu Solomon is not necessarily the starting quarterback. If that’s true, if little-used sophomore Brandon Dawkins legitimately has a chance to be the starter Sept. 3 against BYU, the Wildcats will rank No. 12 in QB rankings in the Conference of Quarterbacks. If Solomon remains healthy and isn’t the starter — if his 25 career starts, 44 touchdown passes and 6,448 yards are washed away — then Arizona is in some real trouble with the problems that run much deeper than a not-ready-for-prime-time defense. Possible solution: Solomon regains full command of the offense and junior receiver Cam Denson has the speed and elusiveness to spread the field and change the dynamics of the offense.
2. Arizona did not have a first-team All-Pac-12 selection in 2015 and isn’t likely to have one in 2016, either. The top grouping on the roster is at receiver; Samajie Grant, Nate Phillips and Trey Griffey are useful, experienced players, but none are NFL prospects or break-away threats. There is no true game-changer on the roster, offense or defense. How does anyone beat Stanford or USC or UCLA without star power? If things go well, it’s possible Arizona could have a capable offensive line, behind Jacob Alsadek, Layth Friekh, Freddie Tagaloa and Gerhard De Beer. That’s the minimum expectation to break .500 in the Pac-12. Possible solution: Alsadek becomes an all-star, and junior tailback Nick Wilson remains healthy, plays with abandon and matches his 1,375-yard freshman season.
3. Although recent defensive departures of linebacker Derrick Turituri, lineman Anthony Fotu and pass-rusher Josh Allen were not much of a surprise, the UA is so thin defensively that finding Pac-12-ready replacements is unlikely. What else can go wrong? Not much. The lack of depth and talent on defense, which happens periodically in many mid-level football programs like Arizona, has been a selection problem. The lack of recruiting/evaluation success under former Arizona defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel was such that the Wildcats defense might not hit bottom until 2017 or even later. Possible solution: As UA opponents likely gain more than 6,000 yards for a third consecutive season, fans show patience, continue to buy tickets, and believe that someday soon the Wildcats will surely go to the Rose Bowl.
The outlook for Arizona’s 2016 football season reminds me of sitting on the runway on a delayed flight bound for home. The pilot interrupts the anticipation by saying, “ladies and gentlemen, I have good news and bad news. … We’re eventually going to get you home, but first we must return to the gate for some repairs.”
This isn’t a make or break year for RichRod. His contract runs through 2020, with the possibility of earning more than $15 million. But his patience, coaching ability, roster management and organizational skills will be tested like never before.
- Greg Hansen
The Pima County Sports Hall of Fame will introduce its Class of 2016 in a midday press conference Friday at the DoubleTree Hotel. The 15-person class includes Vance Johnson, one of the most intriguing athletes in Tucson history. The Cholla High School grad was not only an All-Pac-10 running back at Arizona, but won the 1982 NCAA long-jump championship and was 3 inches from making Team USA at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. He was such a gifted athlete that the Denver Broncos drafted him No. 31 overall in 1985, switched him to wide receiver and he became a success, helping the Broncos to three Super Bowls. Johnson, 53, lives in Palm Beach, Florida, working as an advocate for addiction recovery. Also among the PCSHF’s newest class is Cleo Robinson, a Marana High School grad, part of one of Tucson’s most successful sports families in history. Robinson became one of college football’s top officials, working in the Pac-12 for two decades.
- Greg Hansen
After 13 successful baseball coaching seasons at Sahuaro High School, Mark Chandler last week made a rare jump: He will be the new head coach at rival Sabino High School. Chandler was 248-133 in his 13 Sahuaro seasons, coaching major-league lefty Pat McCoy and outfielder Alex Verdugo, who last year was named the top hitting prospect in the Los Angeles Dodgers system.
- Greg Hansen
Tim Derksen capped his terrific high school and college basketball career last week by signing to play for EuroLeague’s Marin-Peixegalego of Spain’s Gold League. Derksen, who led Amphitheater High School to the 2011 state championship and 2010 title game, scored 1,437 points in four seasons for the San Francisco Dons, finishing 13th on the school’s career scoring list. Derksen will leave for Spain later this month.
- Greg Hansen
The Tucson Summer Pro League’s All-Star Game will be held at 1 p.m., Sunday at the Gregory School. Among those in the game is Mark Simmons, who played on those state power basketball teams of Santa Rita’s Jim Ferguson and guard Terrell Stoglin in 2009 and 2010. Simmons was a starter at Cochise College before playing one season, averaging 4.1 points per game, at St. Mary’s of Texas.
- Greg Hansen
The first high school football game in Arizona this season will be the compelling neighborhood rivalry, Jay Campos’ Sabino Sabercats versus Scott McKee’s Sahuaro Cougars on Thursday, August 18, at Sabino, 7:30 p.m. It is the feature game in Tucson’s annual Coaches for Charity Kickoff Classic. Former Arizona All-Pac-12 linebacker and NFL Pro Bowl standout Lance Briggs will be the keynote speaker at the Saturday, Aug. 13 luncheon, at noon at the DoubleTree Hotel. Coaches from Sabino, Sahuaro, Sunnyside, Pueblo, Rincon, Tucson, Nogales and Buena will be featured at the luncheon. Ticket information: coachesforcharity.org. Two more early games of the must-watch group: Dennis Bene’s Salpointe Catholic Lancers will host Mountain View on August 26. That’s the same night Jeff Scurran’s Catalina Foothills Falcons open at home against Tempe High School.
- Greg Hansen
Arizona State’s basketball program last week produced a marketing poster that packaged incoming freshman forward Sam Cunliffe with three of the top Sun Devil basketball players of the last 20 years — James Harden, Ike Diogu and Jahii Carson. Arizona would never do that, in part because it doesn’t need the attention or publicity leading up to the season, and it puts a ton of unnecessary pressure on young Mr. Cunliffe. Bobby Hurley has unquestionably recruited well in his first year and a half in Tempe, but Cunliffe probably isn’t one of the five or 10 leading recruits entering the Pac-12. My top three: Washington point guard Markelle Fultz, UCLA’s Lonzo Ball and Arizona’s Lauri Markkanen. In seven games in the FIBA U20 European Championships, Markkanen averaged 24.9 points, 8.6 rebounds while shooting 50 percent overall and 83 percent from the foul line. Unfortunately, his Finnish teammates were awful; the club finished 15th of 16 teams in the tournament.
- Greg Hansen
The Pac-12 would be wise to follow the ACC’s decision to expand the conference season to 20 games (in 2019). That much hit home last week when the Pac-12 announced its 2016-17 conference schedule; Arizona does not play Oregon in Tucson, or Utah in Salt Lake City. Those are two of the marquee games of the year that fans won’t get to see. Instead, the league is stuffed with cupcake after cupcake in bloated home nonconference schedules.
- Greg Hansen
Arizona baseball coach Jay Johnson, a tireless recruiter, has a commitment from the top Casa Grande prospect in the last several decades. Lefty pitcher Gil Luna has committed to play at Arizona. Luna struck out 138 batters in just 64 innings for Casa Grande High School last year, including an epic performance of 19 strikeouts against rival Vista Grande. Now Johnson will have to worry about Luna’s status in the June 2017 MLB draft.
- Greg Hansen
In 12 AAU basketball games this summer, from California to Las Vegas to Chicago, Tucson Rattlers forward Kiya Dorroh emerged as a Division I prospect. She attends Magee Middle School. That’s how it works in modern college basketball.
Dorroh won’t graduate from high school until the spring of 2021. Is that too early? Arizona softball coach Mike Candrea has a commitment from Class of 2020 outfielder Giulia Koutsoyanopulos; he successfully recruited her last summer, when she played for the 12U Orange County Batbusters.
Dorroh benefited from playing for coach Chris Klassen’s Tucson Rattlers, one of the respected AAU basketball programs. The former Palo Verde High School coach, a PVHS grad who was a point guard at William Penn College in Iowa, has operated the Tucson Rattlers since 2008. Among those who “graduated” from the Rattlers is Pima College point guard Sydni Stallworth, a first team NJCAA All-American last season.
The days of taking a summer off and maintaining a spot on a good high school team ended long ago. For example, Bill Lang’s highly-regarded Ironwood Ridge volleyball team this summer had eight weeks of conditioning, and spent eight days competing in the Long Beach State volleyball camp and UA coach Dave Rubio’s camp.
Klassen’s travel team will return to the AAU road next month in Anaheim. Last week, Ironwood Ridge’s Natalie Bartle, Cienega’s Kelsey Siemons and Lauren Green and Rincon/University’s Tatiana Nzeukou, part of the Rattlers 5-0 success, were scouted by college coaches.
Since 2011, Klassen’s Rattlers have helped 27 girls earn college basketball scholarships.
- Greg Hansen
Florida’s search for an athletic director to replace high-profile Jeremy Foley, who will retire October 1, took a significant turn recently.
The Gators announced that Foley’s two leading associate ADs, Mike Hill and Chip Howard, will not be considered as Foley’s replacement.
Unlike USC and Texas, which filled AD vacancies this year with Trojan and Longhorn blood, the Gators will scour the country for the best possible fit.
That likely puts Arizona AD Greg Byrne on a list of those the Gators will vet and examine.
One of the positives for anyone being considered as the job is that the Gators have an annual athletic budget of close to $150 million, or about double Arizona’s budget. The new Florida AD will not have to count nickels and dimes any more.
Florida, for example, will pay its assistant football coaches $4.23 million in 2016. That’s about double what Arizona football assistants are paid.
Florida is one of four or five schools that can offer a prospective AD a contract that is virtually impossible to turn down, doubling the salary of Byrne or anyone it targets.
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