UA football goes from deep to deeper, good to better, if vets can return | Michael Lev

The Arizona football team could get two productive starters back from last year’s team if the court rulings go the right way. Given that the NCAA is the one appealing, it feels more like an inevitability than a possibility.

If it comes to pass, the Wildcats will welcome running back Ismail Mahdi and linebacker Max Harris back with open arms. As they should. Those two fifth-year players would make Arizona a better, deeper squad. Period. Full stop.

I asked multiple UA coaches and players at the team’s media day Tuesday if they were concerned that Mahdi and Harris’ potential return would disrupt the chemistry that Brent Brennan and his staff have worked so hard to build. They all unhesitatingly said no, it would not.

“If they were jerks, maybe,” said Brennan, whose team was set to begin training camp Wednesday morning. “But this team loves those two guys. Those guys were leaders. They were well respected.”

I can’t overstate how big a factor that is in all this. As defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales put it: “If they weren’t good teammates, we wouldn’t want them back.”

Obviously, Arizona wouldn’t be interested if they weren’t good players, too. Their combination of talent and character makes it an easy decision for Brennan, who knows full well what could be in store this season.

Coming off a 9-4 campaign, Arizona is one of a handful of teams that has a legitimate chance to win the Big 12 Conference. The UA returns its head coach, all three of its coordinators and its starting quarterback.

Brennan owes it to Noah Fifita to do everything possible to put the best team around him. With Fifita entering his fifth and final season, the Wildcats’ championship window is open right now. If a handful of players’ egos get bruised because they stand to lose playing time to Mahdi and Harris, so be it. It’s for the greater good.

Some of those players participated in media day, and they seemed to accept and understand that.

“Oh, of course,” tailback Quincy Craig said when asked if the RB room would welcome back Mahdi. “Izzy is my brother for life.”

“The more the merrier,” added tailback Kedrick Reescano. “Whatever helps the team get the win. That's what's really important.”

And the linebackers?

“We all root for each other. We're all unselfish people,” Chase Kennedy said. “It'll be nothing but a plus for this team just because of the kind of people they are and the kind of players they are.”

Taye Brown was even more resolute. If Harris returned to the LB room, Brown said, it would be “positives in all areas.”

Depth charge

Let’s sketch out what this might look like.

Mahdi and Harris both want to return, I’ve been told. Harris might be in better shape given that Mahdi seemingly had moved onto the business world. In either case, it would be a slow ramp-up. Even assuming a relatively quick resolution in the courts, I wouldn’t expect either player to be full go by the Sept. 5 opener vs. NAU.

But that’s OK. Neither player would have been handed a starting spot anyway. As offensive coordinator Seth Doege said, “I don't see it as, ‘Oh, Mahdi’s coming back, he's the guy.’ He's gonna have to earn it, too.”

It’s more about adding good players at positions where you can never have enough good players.

While mulling Mahdi’s potential impact, I couldn’t help but think of the 2016 Wildcats. Their RB room (among others) was so decimated by injuries that senior wide receiver Samaji Grant had to move to running back — a position he hadn’t played since high school.

Brennan said “you always need three or four” running backs over the course of a season. Sometimes it’s even more than that.

“The running back room can be scary sometimes when two or three guys go down and you don't have anybody back there that you feel really confident in, or maybe he's just not ready to play yet and he's having to play,” Doege said. “Well, if you bring Mahdi back, you end up being loaded in that room.”

Reescano and Craig are the projected top two, followed by veteran transfer Antwan Roberts and second-year players Wesley Yarbrough and Cornelius Warren III. It’s a deep, talented group. Mahdi would make it deeper and more talented.

Linebacker isn’t quite as conducive to rotating and platooning as running back, but Gonzales is as creative as they come. Arizona deployed as many as four linebackers at once last season. There’s room in the room for one more.

Team above all

On either side of the ball, culture is king under Brennan. He’s a disciple of Dick Tomey, who famously preached “The team, the team, the team.”

Mahdi and Harris would make the team better.

“Everybody wants individual success,” linebackers coach Josh Bringuel said. “But he (Brennan) set a culture here where it’s root for your brother, root for the guy next to you.

“Max is our brother. He was in this program. He bled for us. They would welcome him back.”

Bringuel conceded that it’s conceivable someone in his room would be upset about potentially losing playing time to Harris, who hasn’t been in the room since the Holiday Bowl.

But if there is somebody who feels that way, Bringuel said, “they're drowned out by the rest that feel great about it and ultimately want the team success and know that he could be a tremendous factor if we get him.”

Besides, you never know how a season will play out. Brennan released a list of nine players who will be limited in some capacity to start training camp. Three are linebackers (Coleman Patmon, Myron Robinson, Everett Roussaw Jr.).

In addition to bolstering depth, adding Mahdi and Harris would boost the competition at their respective positions. Brennan loves that idea.

“We want everyone to feel the pressure of competition in the practice environment,” he said. “We're trying to elevate the level of play. So the more competition, the better. Let's pour some gas on that fire.”

More competition, more depth, more talent, more experience. I concur with Brown: Positives in all areas.