SportsRatings 2015 College Football Pre-season Top 128
| Arizona Wildcats (Pac-12 #5; South #3) |
 #23 |
2014 Results |
AP #19 USA #17 | Strength:#30 Success:#6 Overall:#22 |
| Record: 10-4 | Bowl: Lost to Boise State 38-30 |
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| 2015 Outlook |
Picks: AP #22 | USA #22 | Lindy's #19 | Athlon #30 | Steele #33 | ESPN #27 |
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| Record: 8-4 | Bowl odds: 98% Playoff odds: 2% | ||
This may look like a downgrade but we actually consider Arizona to be a better team this year. They probably won't match the success they had last year though, as they greatly outperformed their Strength.
| Offense 6 ret. starters |
2014 Scoring Offense: #30 (raw) #29 (adjusted for opposition) |
| 2015 Projected Scoring Offense: #24 (adjusted) |
Anu Solomon had a great freshman year and we don't expect a sophomore slump.
| Passing Game |
2014 Passing Rank: #22 (raw) #36 (adjusted) | 2014 Sacks Allowed (raw): #108 |
| 2015 Projected Passing Rank: #24 (adjusted) |
2015 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #119 |
Anu Solomon (3,793 yards, 28 TDs, 9 interceptions) was enough of a talent to force Rich Rodriguez to abandon his usual run-first bias in favor of throwing the ball 50% of the time. This year with receivers Cayleb Jones (1,109 yards, 9 TDs) and Samajie Grant (718 yards, 6 TDs) back things look even better. #3 Austin Hill (635 yards) is gone but he's the only one missing out of the top five. The O-Line allowed 40 sacks last year and with three starters gone that could get worse, but passing production should be top 25 level.
| Rushing | 2014 Rushing Rank: #47 (raw) #39 (adjusted) | 2015 Projected Rushing Rank: #50 (adj.) |
Nick Wilson (1,375 yards, 16 touchdowns) is back while #2 Terris Jones-Grigsby (567 yards) departs. Anu Solomon (291) was the #3 rusher. The offensive line returns just two starters, however, senior Cayman Bundage and sophomore Jacob Alsadek, though transfer Freddie Tagaloa started 7 games for Cal in 2013.
| 2014 Adjusted Stats: | Rush Defense: #61 Pass Defense per-game: #88 Per-attempt: #64 | ||
| Defense 6 ret. starters |
'14 Scoring Defense: #81 (raw) #36 (adjusted) | '14 sacks: #25 | '14 picks: #59 |
| '15 Projected Scoring Defense: #45 (adjusted) |
'15 sacks: #18 | '15 picks: #90 | |
Two of three starters return to the Wildcat defensive line. Last year's solid pass rush could be even better as Scooby Wright (#1 tackler with 163, 14 sacks, 15 tackles for loss) returns at linebacker, but key reserve Cody Ippolito was recently lost to an ACL injury. The 5-man secondary is hit hard with three lost starters as Jared Tevis (120 tackles) is gone along with Jonathan McKnight (13 pass breakups) but Will Parks (12 tackles for loss) returns. The defense isn't quite as good as last year's model as five of the top seven tacklers are good but Scooby Wright will keep things under control and should again be the nation's top defensive player.
Special Teams/Situations
- Kicking Game: Casey Skowron (20 of 28 field goals) is back along with punter Drew Riggleman (46.1 average).
- Return Game: DaVonte Neal, the team's #6 pass catcher last year (now at cornerback) averaged 11.1 yards per punt return with one touchdown. Tyrell Johnson (23.7 on kickoffs) is also back though he may miss a few early games.
- Turnovers projection: The factors here basically cancel each other out.
Coaching Hot Seat Ranking: #85 (COOL)
Rich Rodriguez' Arizona experience has been very different from his Michigan one. Here he immediately turned the program to winning and has kept it up, with 8-5, 8-5, and 10-4 records in three years. He's about as safe as you can be outside of first-year coaches and those with Top 25 teams each year.
Recruiting 2015 Recruiting Rank: #29 2014 Recruiting Rank: #22
This year's class is quite good, and right in the thick of the Pac-12 in rank.
2014 Recap
The early knock on Arizona was that they were beating subpar competition and barely escaping with the win, which was true vs. UTSA (26-23) and Nevada (35-28). That talk stopped after they beat Oregon 31-24. But once Arizona had a loss of their own (28-26 to USC), that win was excused as the result of Oregon missing a few offensive linemen. It was clear that if they wanted to get in the Playoff they'd need to beat Oregon twice, a pretty heady task. Arizona's loss to USC was excusable, too, coming on a missed field goal after an amazing comeback, but UCLA beat them 17-7 and seemingly ended their Pac-12 title hopes. The Wildcats pressed on, beating Washington by a point, clubbing Utah senseless 42-10, and edging rival ASU 42-35 to get a rematch with Oregon. It wasn't close this time—51-13—but at least they'd earned the right to try. The Fiesta Bowl vs. Boise State was a good game but they came up short, 38-30.
Last year's prediction: Just like in our Arizona State review, we got Arizona's rank pretty much correct as they finished just #30 in Strength. But they were #6 in Success so something was definitely off in our 6-6 projection. Arizona went 10-2 during the regular season, and our game-by-game chart only showed 5 wins! True, it also showed close losses to Washington State (50%), Washington (47%), and Arizona State (50%) that could easily have led to an 8-4 prediction. Then, the only games we would have gotten wrong were the Oregon and Utah wins. Which is why we wrote "this year's record is not so easy to predict."
2015 Outlook
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Arizona 2015 schedule & forecast |
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| 9/3 | Thu | vs. | UTSA | 99% | W | |||
| 9/12 | Sat | @ | Nevada | 85% | W | |||
| 9/19 | Sat | vs. | Northern Arizona | 99% | W | |||
| 9/26 | Sat | vs. | *UCLA | 53% | W | |||
| 10/3 | Sat | @ | *Stanford | 38% | L | |||
| 10/10 | Sat | vs. | *Oregon State | 97% | W | |||
| 10/17 | Sat | @ | *Colorado | 68% | W | |||
| 10/24 | Sat | vs. | *Washington State | 85% | W | |||
| 10/31 | Sat | @ | *Washington | 80% | W | |||
| 11/7 | Sat | @ | *USC | 24% | L | |||
| 11/14 | Sat | vs. | *Utah | 63% | W | |||
| 11/21 | Sat | @ | *Arizona State | 42% | L | |||
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Straight up: 9-3 Cume: 8-4 Bowl eligible: 98%
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This year we expect another very good year from the Wildcats, but closer to the 8-win totals they had the first two seasons under Rodriguez. However, if the ball bounces their way again it could be another memorable year.
The early schedule is forgiving. The first three games should all be wins despite a number of players who may be missing due to injuries; these should be over by the time the UCLA game rolls around and that's good because they'll need everyone to be at the best in that tossup game.
Then they travel to Stanford and that will be even harder. But after that the Wildcats should embark on a 4-game win streak to put them anywhere from 7-2 to 9-0. If it's the latter then the game at USC will be huge. The Trojans probably win that one at home and the Wildcats likely split Utah and Arizona State, with a win more likely in Salt Lake City and a loss in Tempe.
We opened the review by saying Arizona overachieved last year and probably won't do as well this year. But looking at the percentages we assign, there's definitely a path to a very good season. No game is less than a 1 in 4 chance, and most of the "losses" above are tossups or very closely-contested. So a repeat of 10-2 isn't far-fetched; in fact, the bottom chart shows an 18% chance of 10 or more wins.
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SportsRatings 2015 College Football Pre-season Top 128
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