University of Arizona football is on the right path under second-year Wildcats head coach Rich Rodriguez, according to Pete Roussel of CoachingSearch.com.

Roussel has high praise for the direction of the Wildcats’ program in his article “7 college football programs on track for the next level.” The writer mentions Arizona first on his list (and, no, it’s not in alphabetical order).

“It’s going to take Rich Rodriguez a little bit longer than he anticipated, but Arizona is on the verge of becoming a consistent Top 25 program in the next several years under Rodriguez,” Roussel writes.

The writer says we’ll look back on 2013 four years from now and realize that the Wildcats are one of the programs that was in the process of “building something special.”

Roussel uses the story of Jim Harbaugh to illustrate his point of having patience with new head coaches. Harbaugh went 9-15 in his first two years as head coach at Stanford, but the team improved to 20-6 over Harbaugh’s next two seasons — before he went to the NFL and had even more success with the San Francisco 49ers.

“While new coaches often generate excitement, the breakthrough doesn’t come until year No. 3, 4, 5 or 6,” Roussel writes.

Arizona went 8-5 in Rodriguez’s first year. If that means the program has yet to blossom under his guidance, then Wildcats fans are going to love him by Year Three.