Come out and have a blast while playing in David Macklin's Flag Football Event on January 28-29 at Paseo Highlands Park, 3435 West Pinnacle Peak Road, Phoenix.
Sponsorship support is appreciated as Glory Days 4 on 4 is in partnership with 27 Reasons Foundation.
Proceeds given to Phoenix Children's Hospital and Tumbleweed program. Building meaningful connections while playing flag.
For more information, visit www.glorydays4on4.com.
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Still looking for tickets to the Arizona vs. Arizona State University Territorial Cup game on Saturday, November 19 in Tempe?
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Don't miss your chance to see this heated rivalry between the Wildcats and Sun Devils live and in-person!
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Arizona football linebacker Jake Fischer will undergo surgery this week to repair a torn ACL, according to the Arizona Daily Star.
Fischer, a junior, hurt the knee in Saturday’s spring game and was helped off the field, visibly hurting to the point where he could put little, if any, pressure on the knee.
Via the Daily Star:
The UA announced the pending surgery this morning, four days after Fischer suffered an injury during the final minutes of the team’s annual spring game. Fischer will undergo surgery some time in the next week, and could be out as long as seven months.
The injury is a huge hit to the Wildcats, who already had poor depth at the linebacker position. R.J. Young decided to transfer during the offseason, leaving five LBs on the roster. Three of those — Rob Hankins, Hank Hobson and Domonique Petties — will be freshmen next season.
Returning are seniors Paul Vassallo and Derek Earls, but Fischer leaves a solid 58 tackles, 7.5 for loss, off of the field. He put up those numbers his sophomore season and proved to be the fastest of the three starters.
Still, Arizona will again play a lot of nickel an dime packages, though the injury to safety Adam Hall makes Fischer’s injury yet another major set-back before the fall semester even hits.
How worried are you about Arizona’s injuries stacking up on both offense and defense?
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A few weeks into spring ball, the Arizona Wildcats are in a questionable position.
On one hand, you have a team on a three-year bowl streak. On the other, the last two bowl games ended up with flops of performances. Plus, last season’s five-game slide to finish off the year won’t put a whole lot of optimism into head coach Mike Stoops’ program.
Still, there’s much to be excited about. I won’t go up and down the whole roster, but here’s a few key developments that could steer the Wildcats into fighting for the top of the Pacific 12 Conference (that’s weird to say) or down into the dumps of what should be another deep league in 2011 — not counting the poor Washington State Cougars, of course.
Key injuries
They’ve hardly had time to see the field, but two knee injuries have already hit two of Arizona’s key players.
Running back Greg Nwoko, expected to be the back-up to lead Keola Antolin, is out with a knee injury. That’s a big blow considering Antolin himself doesn’t have the track record of staying healthy, making the development of third-man Daniel Jenkins, a small, speedy sophomore, all the more important.
Then there’s the biggest blow. Arizona’s defense was solid for most of last season, but until safety Adam Hall began knocking heads off opposing players, they didn’t really have what you’d call a “playmaker.” Hall is now out for around seven weeks, according to the Daily Star, who also notes up-and-comers in DT Justin Washington and cornerback Shaq Richardson are also being held out of practice.
For Stoops, getting his team healthy going into the summer (and during it, I guess) will be huge. The season is a long ways off, but the current rate of injury isn’t something to discount hurting UA down the road.
Coaching whirlwind
Arizona’s offensive line was the rock that got everything moving for the Wildcats’ offense last year. With a huge loss in talent to graduation, the biggest hurt for Arizona would be the loss of mastermind Bill Bedenbaugh, the offensive line coach.
It happened, and he left for West Virginia for the same position. Now, the Wildcats bring in Robert Anae, a guy highly respected out of BYU to take over a young line.
Meanwhile, the defensive units’ most picked-upon group, the defensive backs, got snubbed by Texas’ Duane Akina, who spent about two weeks on the job before returning to the Longhorns. In his place is young-gun Ryan Walters playing secondary coach. Who knows? Maybe Stoops found a diamond in the rough.
Walters biggest job is getting cornerback Trevin Wade back to form after a pretty bad sophomore season.
But there’s positives too.
Nick Foles, duh
Some people, like me, like Matt Scott in this system better than Foles. But with Scott redshirting, that doesn’t mean Foles will be bad. Lots of his problems last year came because of a deficient run game.
This year, he’s got a lot of firepower in the receivers. Juron Criner could vie for All-American honors and is joined by equally athletic Dan Buckner, who was out after a transfer from Texas.
Plus, you’ve got the young guys like Terrence Miller, the always dependable David Douglas. Simply put, Foles will have the ammo to bomb some Pac-12 defenses this coming season. Now, how about that run game?
Big-time D
Health aside, Arizona’s defense doesn’t lose a who lot outside of their three beastly defensive ends. Justin Washington will be a force if he’s put on some weight, Wade couldn’t have gotten worse, and Adam Hall began looking like the guy at Palo Verde High School — a man amongst boys. The cornerbacks should be more experienced opposite Wade, too.
And of course, there’s always the underappreciated linebackers, all returning.
In generic terms, Arizona looks great on paper. But as it’s been for this program for a decade now, they simply need to figure out how to have a winning mentality, game in and game out.
What do you think are the most important things that happen this spring for Arizona to recover from the fizzle-out of last season?
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Photo by Daniel Gaona
Home Field: Tucson Electric Park, 2500 E. Ajo Way
Game Admission:
Sep 4 @ Phoenix College 7 PM
SEP 11 EASTERN ARIZONA COLLEGE 7 PM
SEP 18 NEW MEXICO PREP SCHOOL 7 PM
Sep 25 @ *Glendale Community College 7 PM
OCT 2 *SCOTTSDALE COMMUNITY COLLEGE 7 PM
OCT 9 *ARIZONA WESTERN COLLEGE 7 PM
Oct 16 @ *Mesa Community College 7 PM
OCT 23 *NEW MEXICO MILITARY INSTITUTE 7 PM
Oct 30 @ *Snow College 7 PM
Nov 6 @ *Eastern Arizona College 7 PM
NOV 13 *PHOENIX COLLEGE 7 PM
Home games in BOLD
*Western States Football League game
Daniel Nicholas
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