ESPN bloggers pick Arizona football to finish fifth in Pac-12 South
Jul 29, 2015, 5:15 PM
When it comes to projecting where Arizona football finishes the 2015 season, the Wildcats’ Pac-12 South title a year ago isn’t carrying much weight.
How does fifth place in a six-team division sound?
The Pac-12 preseason media poll won’t be released until media days kick off Thursday, but ESPN’s stable of five conference bloggers did reveal their picks a day early. Every one of Ted Miller, Kevin Gemmell, Chantel Jennings, Kyle Bonagura and David Lombardi picked Rich Rodriguez’s Wildcats to finish their 2015 campaign behind ASU, UCLA, USC and Utah.
Unsurprisingly, Colorado is a unanimous selection to finish last in the Pac-12 South.
There’s merit to the bloggers’ picks. The Wildcats return 13 starters from the 10-4 team that got to the conference championship game and earned a Fiesta Bowl bid. That’s fourth-fewest in the Pac-12.
In a follow-up piece from Jennings and Gemmell, there’s admittedly not a lot of confidence in picking Arizona fifth — or really deciding on how to rank the Pac-12 South teams not named Colorado.
“I really didn’t like Arizona at No. 5. There are plenty of reasons to like Anu Solomon and Nick Wilson and Cayleb Jones and Scooby Wright. But moving the Wildcats up meant moving another team down and then I had compelling reasons not to put that team in the fifth spot,” Jennings wrote.
Gemmell likewise didn’t feel good about picking Arizona fifth, but when none of the teams picked ahead of Arizona are expected to take a step backward, these things happen.
“Actually, the one team that absolutely whopped (Utah) last season — Arizona — I have a notch below the Utes. It makes zero sense,” Gemmell wrote. “But then again, neither does the South.”
