Sumlin’s Monday Press Conference
Note: The content below was published Monday morning. The video above is from Kevin Sumlin’s weekly press conference held later in the day.
Kevin Sumlin announced late Sunday to Michael Lev of the Arizona Daily Star that defensive coordinator Marcel Yates and linebackers coach John Rushing had been fired.
Like any midseason coaching change, it was a sudden and abrupt announcement. At Sumlin’s weekly news conference (embedded above), we will learn more about the head coach’s thought process for the reasons leading up the dismissal, the timing of it and what it means for the future of Arizona football.
For now, what we know is that senior defensive analyst Chuck Cecil will take over the coordinator duties, likely coaching safeties, and defensive analyst Hank Hobson is expected to assume duties coaching linebackers. Yates had coached safeties this season, while Hobson had worked with Rushing and the linebackers in his time as an analyst.
Before I dive in and break down these moves, I want to stress how difficult coaching changes actually are. It is a results-oriented business and every coach knows that when they sign up for the job.
However, relationships in football are very important, not just for the coach, but the families involved, too. Every coach and his family develop a closeness with the other coaches and families that make up the staff. And more importantly, each coach develops a special relationship with his players. These are not easy break ups.
I was fortunate enough to spend three seasons as the football Sports Information Director while Yates on staff. He was always one of the most respectful coaches for me to deal with when it came to media obligations and other day-to-day items around the football offices.
A conversation point that Yates and I had multiple times over the years was how this program and community – Arizona football and Tucson – want to see a winner on defense. He knew nothing makes Arizona Stadium rock more than great defensive plays and big stops on third downs. That is where the true passion lies within this fan base, and it’s what he wanted to help build.
Unfortunately, it just never came together for Yates, even if it was always an incredibly difficult task. What he inherited here in 2016 was an absolute mess of a defensive roster. He was also coming on board at a time when Rich Rodriguez wanted to interject more of his thoughts into the defensive schemes, and there was defensive coaching staff turnover in each of Yates’ three years.
In between, Yates survived a head coaching change when Rodriguez was dismissed. Yates was the interim and a favorite of the players, plus had experience working on Sumlin’s staff at Texas A&M, which made it a natural transition to keep him on board. The hiring of Sumlin, though, brought new assistant coaches in 2018, and after that first season Yates decided he wanted to switch position responsibilities with Rushing going into this year.
Thus, in four seasons, Yates coached cornerbacks, linebackers and safeties. In addition, Yates switched up where he coached from during the games multiple times in his tenure, the latest being him electing to move from the coaching booth in the press box down to the field where he was closer to his players. Things never seemed settled on that side of the ball, and because of that a true identity was never established.
Plenty of time was provided for Yates to see things through, and he had the defense positioned to turnaround this year. His first season was a throwaway 3-8 season in which he had an alarming lack of talent and depth on the defensive side of the ball. His sole focus after 2016 and into 2017 was to begin recruiting more talent, and to his credit, he was slowly upgrading the talent at most positions. That continued through the head coaching change and into the 2018 season, leaving this year as the one for a more complete product to take the field.
That took a hit right out of the gates with the disappointing loss to Hawai’i. Things did not look any better despite more talent and depth than he had in his first three seasons. He and his players fought hard to improve over the next month, and there were signs of progress as the defense helped win games against Texas Tech and UCLA, while keeping things close against Washington and USC for the first halves.
Another disappointing showing last Saturday at Stanford became the final straw, and Sumlin took the corrective action. So now, let’s explore whether this was the right move at the right time and what it means for the future of Arizona football.
Was it the Right Move?
While Yates has only been the defensive coordinator under Sumlin for a year-and-a-half, he has had nearly four seasons as Arizona’s coordinator, which means a majority of his roster are guys he recruited and brought in.
The talent on the defensive side of the ball is improved since Yates took over, even if it remains in the bottom half of the conference talent-wise. The defensive line still lacks true Power 5 talent and depth, but it is still upgraded from what it was three or four years ago.
The problem is the on-field results have not progressed the way one would expect with the continuity of the coordinator calling the shots and the modest upgrades in talent. In a way, Arizona is getting less with more.
Consider that opponents are averaging 6.2 yards per play this season. That is the worst YPP number for an Arizona team since the disastrous 2011 season that led to Mike Stoops’ midseason dismissal. Opponents averaged 6.59 yards per play that season.
From a scoring perspective, the Wildcats have also regressed. When Yates came aboard in 2016, opponents scored 38.3 points per game. That average declined to 34.4 the next season and continued downward last year to 32.6. However, Arizona is dead last in the Pac-12 in scoring defense this season, surrendering 35.0 points per game.
Arizona Defense Under Marcel Yates (2016-present)
| Points Per Game | Yards Per Play | |
| 2016 | 38.3 | 6.1 |
| 2017 | 34.4 | 6.0 |
| 2018 | 32.6 | 5.7 |
| 2019 | 35.0 | 6.2 |
While there is a month of football left for Arizona’s defense to potentially improve its numbers back to the 2018 “standards”, Sumlin was going to have to address the defensive coordinator position at some point after the season anyway. If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse, and if you’re getting worse four years into things, it’s probably best for all parties to make a change. That is what Sumlin decided to do.
Somewhere in America there is an assistant coach that could get more out of this group of players that Arizona has, so when are we going to get that coach? The process to answer that question begins now.
Was it the Right Time?
Mid-season coaching changes are always a last resort, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t necessary. For Arizona’s situation, I believe this was the right time to make the change for a number of reasons.
First and most importantly, Arizona’s defense is not improved from a year ago. There have been some really good moments for the group, but those have diminished in recent weeks. The Wildcats are not creating turnovers, they are not sacking the quarterback and they are not stopping the run (over 5.0 yards per carry last two games).
Sumlin and the Wildcats need to win two more games to achieve bowl eligibility, which would be an important step forward for his program in Year 2. As I wrote about the quarterback situation following the USC loss, you can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. For Arizona to have a chance over the final month of the season (and beyond), it needed to make a significant change on defense.
The changes comes at a good time with Arizona’s Homecoming game against Oregon State. The Beavers are a good offensive football team, and their offensive line coach, Jim Michalczik, is a former UA assistant coach from Rodriguez’s staff. Michalczik will be familiar with Arizona’s personnel, but more so with the thought process that Yates would have had installing a game plan against OSU. Any advantage that could be gained by that goes out the window with the coaching change at this point.
It’s also interesting to note that the change comes the week that Arizona is set to honor the Desert Swarm teams of the 1990s with throwback uniforms for the Homecoming game. Now, this is not to say Tedy Bruschi and Co. are going to come out of the tunnel Saturday afternoon and shut out the Beavers, but it is coincidental and symbolic of the crossroads that Sumlin’s program is at in Year 2.
What’s Next (For Now)?
One of the players that laid the foundation for the Desert Swarm teams to later rise to national prominence was Chuck Cecil, a fan favorite and one of former coach Dick Tomey’s greatest players.
Cecil embodies everything you want in a player and coach. He was a three-time Academic All-American, he played collegiately at an All-American level, he beat ASU (a lot), he is an accomplished NFL player, he has a lengthy and distinguished NFL coaching resume and, most of all, he bleeds red and blue.
For the next four games, I fully expect the defense to play harder than we have seen it play all season. Cecil will motivate and inspire his players to play in a way they haven’t before. And he will make it fun for them to do so. That should also be fun for us to watch.
However, what can we expect schematically from Cecil? That’s the million-dollar question in the Oregon State coaches offices this week. They spent their bye week game-planning for one thing, but now that could totally get thrown out the window depending on what Cecil & Co. draw up.
But what can Cecil really change in the course of a week? Not too much in the grand scheme of things.
He can change up personnel as he sees fit. He can install a few tweaks to alignments, schemes and coverages. And he can probably break some tendencies in the defense.
Any larger, wholesale changes would take more time to install. Perhaps those begin this week and continue into Arizona’s final bye week next.
But remember, Sumlin wants to win now. He needs Cecil to have a game plan ready to win this week – not just two or three weeks from now. So I would expect Cecil to make a few calculated tweaks this week, but more than anything inspire this group to play the game in a different way than they ever have. It’s about getting more from less, not less from more as the Wildcats have much of this season.
What’s Next (Longer Term)?
The most significant ramification of a coaching change like this comes in recruiting. This is another reason the timing of this potentially inevitable change was right.
Sumlin and his staff can address the changes and the future vision with recruits right away. Those conversations have likely begun immediately and will continue throughout this week. Currently, the coaches must observe NCAA rules for a “quiet period”, meaning they can communicate with recruits and their families by phone (and/or write to them).
Next week during the bye week, coaches can hit the road to watch and evaluate recruits, but they cannot have face to face interaction with the recruit and their famlies. The only face-to-face communication the staff can have before Dec. 1 will be when a recruit visits campus (Note: Sept. 1 through Nov. 30 is, in addition to a quiet period, an evaluation period, giving coaches 42 days to go watch prospective student-athletes, but not have direct contact with them.)
Once Dec. 1 arrives, the “contact period” begins where coaches can visit prospective student-athletes off-campus (including in their homes) up to six times before Feb. 1 (there are quiet and dead periods built-in around the holidays during this window).
All of this said, Dec. 1 is only a month away, so time is moving quickly. Don’t forget, a majority of recruits want to sign in the early signing period that went into effect two years ago.
This year that early period is from Dec. 18 through Dec. 20, which is why it was important for Sumlin to make this change now. They can focus the next four weeks on reassuring recruits of the change over the next month, all while developing a plan to hit the road with the future vision of the program come December so those players are confident in their decision to sign with Arizona.
The interesting question looking ahead is who will be the next defensive coordinator? Does Cecil have an opportunity to earn the full-time duties? Will Sumlin have someone ready to bring on board before the early December signing period? Will he have to wait until after the December signing period when more coaches may feel obligated to stay with their current program? Or does he have to wait until a coach finishes up a season with a team playing in a bowl game?
All of that remains to be seen. However, this process was in all likely inevitable come the end of the season, so Sumlin was wise to make the move now. By bringing Cecil on board, there should be a few more fans in the stands Saturday afternoon as the Wildcats pay tribute to the Desert Swarm teams.
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