How Arizona's Opponent The Ducks' Empire Took Flight

This isn’t going to be an article where we look for ways that Arizona can beat the number three ranked team in the country.

Take your Draft Kings money and bet on the Ducks. Arizona has less than a zero percent chance of winning this game.

And while Arizona Football doesn’t have anywhere near near the built in advantages Oregon does, it’s important to look at the template Oregon used to get to this point.

And it’s built on a staff of dynamic recruiters.

Arizona saw first hand with Rich Rodriguez the limitations of a dynamic X’s and O’s coach who can’t recruit.

The national media loves to poke fun at the Pac-12’s ineptitude and, let’s be honest, it’s deserved.

Ever since Pete Carroll left USC the conference has been looking for a program that could marry recruiting and decent coaching.

There have been solid programs like Stanford, but they never had quite the athletes on the outside or Oregon under Chip Kelly but the Ducks one snag was a lack of physicality in the trenches.

Sure it remains to be seen what kind of coach current Oregon head man Mario Cristobal truly is, but he is without question the best recruiter the conference has seen since Pete Carroll left more than a decade ago.

And you’re seeing the realization of his vision.

There would be no stone left unturned and it would be a focus to recruit heavily at all positions.

And, yes, it certainly helps that USC’s struggles opened up a power vacuum, but this breakthrough was going to happen either way.

Along the way Cristobal learned from his predecessor’s mistakes.

Size along the line? Look no further than the potential first pick in the draft, Kayvon Thibodeaux. And a further testament to the depth the Ducks have built is going into Columbus and beating the Buckeyes without the all-everything pass rusher.

Even though he’s out with an injury, at the linebacker level, you have guys like Justin Flowe who was the number one prospect in the nation at his position.

The secondary is likewise littered with talent.

Offensively, the Ducks start a transfer quarterback in Anthony Brown, but in the best indication of the current talent level, former five star QB Ty Thompson is waiting in the wings to take over next year. The offense, like the entire roster, is loaded at all levels.

Oregon has its talent level to the point where even if Cristobal is just an average game day coach the Ducks will be hovering around top ten status for the foreseeable future.

Nobody here has any clue if Arizona Head Coach Jedd Fisch can actually coach, but the one thing he has shown is that he has a group full of coaches who can recruit.
He clearly is someone who, like Cristobal, took inventory of where his predecessors fell short.

Now, this isn’t to say that you need to recruit at a top 5 level. That will never happen at Arizona. But if you don’t neglect key positions and recruit at a top 30 level there’s absolutely no reason you can’t win at a top 25 level.

Similar to Cristobal, it’s easy to see Fisch’s vision and what could possibly happen, on a much smaller scale with two or three more recruiting classes.

But, this is going to take time. The juggernaut that Arizona is about to play took three years to develop to this point.