Brad Cesmat
My friend Bill Goodykoontz, the esteemed movie critic for the Arizona Republic, describes Twitter as the worlds largest sports bar. I subscribe to Bills theory. In social media everyone has a voice, so anybody can write on a message board “fire Todd Graham” and not understand that it would cost the University over 13-million dollars to tell him goodbye. So let’s start with that point. The shocker of the year would be that enough “big cigars” would gather together in a hotel ballroom and sign a check over to Ray Anderson to show Graham the door. Here are some other items that are burning up social media and message boards the day after Arizona crushed Arizona State 56-35. I have my own thoughts on the situation which i’ll sprinkle in a bit here and more Sunday in a Three Dots column…
Hire a new defensive coordinator
The first move by Anderson is to tell his head coach that he is no longer overseeing that side of the ball. Secondly, someone is going to have to pay for the wretched numbers this past season. If it’s not Graham then it will be Keith Patterson. But what if Graham doesn’t want to remove his coordinator? What if Graham doesn’t want to give up his role of overseeing the defense? This goes back to the “Ray didn’t hire Todd” narrative. By the way, I think there are some talented, impact players on that side of the ball, Koron Krump at the top of the list.
Find a quarterback for 2017
Here’s the thing about the quarterback situation. All of them were injured at some point and Manny Wilkins didn’t show everybody that he is “the guy” for next season. So for the second offseason in a row fans are going to be hearing about the quarterback. No one can base off of the 2016 season what Perkins, White, or Sterling-Cole can do as the complete package. Wilkins has skills, but in my opinion he didn’t grab the job by the throat. You also have Basha high school commit Ryan Kelley committed to the program.
