Arizona football has 'some strength' on D-Line, 'explosiveness' at LB

The starting defensive linemen would play around 35 snaps per game, while the rotational players log roughly 25 snaps.

Gonzales also said “your best players have to be conditioned to be able to be in the game” during the last four minutes of the second quarter and first four minutes of the third quarter — also known as “the middle eight.”

Gonzales is confident in Arizona’s defensive line rotation this season between the returners and the additions Arizona signed for its 2025 recruiting class. Five of the 12 scholarship newcomers are practicing this spring: defensive tackle Tiaoalii Savea, defensive end Chancellor Owens, defensive end Malachi Bailey, defensive tackle Leroy Palu and defensive tackle Deshawn McKnight — and all of them are upperclassmen with no more than two years of eligibility remaining.

The 6-4, 310-pound Savea, who started his college journey at UCLA, played two seasons at Arizona in 2022 and ‘23, helping the Wildcats to a 10-win season and Alamo Bowl win, before he redshirted at Texas in 2024 and preserved his final year of eligibility.

“It was good seeing him come back,” Arizona safety Dalton Johnson said of Savea. “I love Tia. He’s a good guy and I’m glad to have him. He’s a workhorse and we need him in the front. That was a good get.”

Savea “has done some unbelievable things in the short time” with defensive line coach Joe Salave’a, said Gonzales.

Notable returners on Arizona’s defensive line include defensive end Tre Smith, defensive tackle Isaiah Johnson and nose tackle Chubba Ma’ae, who was sidelined last week but attended practices. Smith, who packed on 30 pounds after joining Arizona and played the 2024 season at 270 pounds, is now listed at 6-5, 259 pounds.

Gonzales said Smith “has a ton of ability,” however Arizona’s objective as a defensive line last season was to play aggressive and get up field, which sometimes created pockets for quarterbacks or runners to step up and slip away for chunk runs — and occasionally extend drives. Smith contributed to that problem last season.

Arizona’s responsibilities on the defensive front were partially why the Wildcats had the third-worst rushing defense in the Big 12 in 2024. Under the previous coaching regime, Arizona had a Top 30 rushing defense in 2023 and prioritized consuming space and occupying blockers to clog lanes on the line of scrimmage.

Former Arizona defensive line coach Joe Seumalo was Smith’s defensive line coach for four years at San Jose State and Arizona, but Seumalo was replaced by Salave’a, a renowned developer and defensive line coach. Both coaches emphasized “attention to details, but the details are a little different in terms of your step, hand placement (and) your eyes, whether it be run or pass,” Smith said.

“Last year, his ability was to bull-rush and be a bull in the China cabinet and just destroy everything in his path,” Gonzales said of Smith, who led the Wildcats in sacks (4.5) last season. “Now we’re giving him some tools and some counter moves to do those things.”

Last month, Salave’a vowed Arizona would be “sound in our fundamentals and technique.”

“We’re going to learn how to master fundamentals that equate to great technique,” Salave’a said. “Physicality, running to the ball and everyone being accountable, taking care of their responsibility up front, are some of the things you’ll see from this group. I think we have enough in this room to give us a chance.”

A telling sign of Arizona’s potential turnaround up front is the strength. According to Gonzales, the Wildcats have 19 defensive players who can hang-clean over 300 pounds.

“That’s phenomenal,” Gonzales said. “That’s really good for a football team. … That explosive movement gives you a chance to be violent on defense.”

Added Gonzales: “We’ve got some guys that can do some things up front. They’re twitchy enough to move around and they’ll be hard to get off the ball. If you’re not good up front, it doesn’t matter what you have behind you. They’re just going to maul you and beat you to death.

“We have some strength up front, but now we just need to develop it into good football players. The tenacity of who we’re going to be, that’s instilled every single day. … You don’t have to have to most talent. You have to have enough talent to be really good. We have enough talent.”

‘Toughness, explosiveness and length’

Arizona added “toughness, explosiveness and length” to its linebacker room, Gonzales said.

The Wildcats return junior linebacker Taye Brown, who had the second-most tackles (69) behind Dalton Johnson, redshirt senior Justin Flowe and redshirt freshmen Stacy Bey and Jabari Mann, among others. They added transfers Riley Wilson (Montana), Max Harris (Texas State) and Blake Gotcher (Northwestern State), who had 162 tackles and was an FCS All-American last season.

“At any level of tackle (football), whether it’s Pop Warner, FCS, FBS, Power 5, if you have 162 tackles in a season, that’s unbelievable,” Gonzales said of Gotcher. “So I think we’ve added some significant depth there.”

Arizona didn’t have to look far for another potential starter at linebacker. Redshirt junior Chase Kennedy, who started eight games at defensive end last year after transferring from Utah, has moved to linebacker. Kennedy evolved into a standup edge rusher, roaming linebacker in the second half of the season in Arizona’s tweaked defense due to so many injuries.

The 6-3, 228-pound Kennedy can play “on the line of scrimmage and off, because of his athletic ability,” Gonzales said.

Arizona is expected to use two- and three-linebacker lineups under Gonzales, who used a 3-3-5 defense at San Diego State, Arizona State and New Mexico.

Kennedy and Wilson, who was a two-time All-Big Sky selection with 136 tackles in two seasons, “both of those guys can play on the line of scrimmage and be a dominant defensive end type” in a three-linebacker lineup, Gonzales said.

Live tackling in practice a ‘touchy issue’

Practicing live tackling at full-speed, especially in the spring, is “a very controversial topic” in college football, according to Gonzales.

Arizona had its fair share of tackling issues last season and recorded 142 missed tackles as a team, according to Pro Football Focus.

NFL teams don’t practice tackling because NFL players are — for the most part — fully developed as players and the league has a preseason schedule. Additionally, college football players nowadays are six- or sometimes seven-figure earners. The price of live tackling and emulating games is the players’ health.

“We don’t get preseason games, and our guys aren’t developed to where they’re NFL players,” Gonzales said. “People gotta remember, in this world in revenue sharing and NIL, these are still undeveloped players that are coming in at a time where they need to develop and learn how to play the game at a high level.

“I’m a firm believer in the only way you get good at something is actually doing it. You have to tackle and do those things. But you’ve never had million-dollar players running around on the field, too, that you take a chance on losing somebody and it makes a significant impact. Sitting in Coach Brennan’s chair, it’s harder to make that decision of whether or not we’re scrimmaging or not.”

It’s “a really, really touchy issue” and it’s partially why teams are canceling spring games, said Gonzales. Arizona converted its annual spring game into an interactive practice for fans. Gonzales added, “There’s also the stealing piece, where people with more money are going to be able to buy players.”

Extra points

Gonzales, on first-year linebackers coach Josh Bringuel, who played under Gonzales at San Diego State: “His energy is tremendous. He does a phenomenal job. Schematically, he knows exactly what my expectation is from being a player and coaching in it.”

Gonzales, on Arizona’s injury pileup on defense last season: “We went to doctors and scientists. ‘Is there something within this that we need to fix?’ And we made adjustments throughout how we’re doing things.”

Gonzales, on adding depth this offseason: “We didn’t have enough depth. Obviously you saw when injuries happened last year, the guys coming in weren’t good enough to compete at a high level and win games in the Big 12. Some of those guys got some experience that will help with their development now and will be great for the future; it just wasn’t at the current time. We added some depth there.”