Arizona's defense has been on a slide over the last few games resulting in the Wildcats giving up an average of 44 points in each of those contests. Something has to change for the Wildcats to get back on the winning track. Sunday the decision was made by Kevin Sumlin that two of his coaches would be the change for the Wildcats.
Sources have confirmed the second-year head coach fired defensive coordinator Marcel Yates as well as linebackers coach John Rushing before the end of the weekend coming off Saturday's 41-31 loss to Stanford.
Yates is in his fourth season in Tucson, but his defense has not made much progress over that span. When Rich Rodriguez was fired back at the end of 2017, Yates was one coach the players rallied around and openly supported as a candidate for the head coach position.
He was ultimately retained by Sumlin, whom he worked with earlier in his career as a co-defensive coordinator in College Station at Texas A&M. Rodriguez hired him away from his alma mater, Boise State, after Yates showed promise in his return to the Broncos. Arizona's defense has routinely been near the bottom of the FBS in most major statistical categories during Yates' time in Tucson.
The defense showed improvement for a three-game stretch this season as it dominated games late helping the Wildcats to earn victories over Texas Tech, UCLA and Colorado. Over the course of those three games Arizona allowed just three points combined in the fourth quarter.
However, a loss to Washington resulted a return to the poor defense the team had shown to begin the season when it gave up a combined 86 points to Hawaii and Northern Arizona in the first two games.
Rushing's connection to Arizona was Yates who worked with the longtime coach at pervious stops including Boise State. The Wildcats hired Rushing to coach safeties bringing him over from Oregon State, but this season he was moved to a new position as UA's linebackers coach when the decision was made that Yates would move back to the coaching in the secondary as the Wildcats' safeties coach.
He was the third linebackers coach in three seasons for UA's current standout junior linebackers Colin Schooler, Tony Fields II and Anthony Pandy.
Moving forward Arizona is expected to hand the defensive coordinator duties to senior defensive analyst Chuck Cecil in the interim until a permanent replacement for Yates can be found and hired. Cecil has served in his role for the last two seasons and has been with the program on staff since 2017 but has yet to serve as an on-field coach at his alma mater.
A one-time consensus All-American safety at UA, Cecil has experience as a defensive coordinator at the NFL level. He spent two seasons as the defensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans back in 2009 and 2010. In all he spent 15 years as a coach on the NFL level after his playing days came to an end.
While Cecil has not been allowed to directly assist on the field up to this point at UA he does have a bond with the safety group because of his role as analyst with the team.
To assist with the linebackers the Wildcats are expected to turn to another former UA player. One-time Arizona linebacker Hank Hobson joined Sumlin's staff earlier this year and he previously served as a graduate assistant for his alma mater. As an analyst he has worked as closely as he is allowed to with UA's linebackers on a day-to-day basis this season.
Arizona enters the week sitting at No. 11 in the Pac-12 in yards allowed per game this season with the Wildcats giving up an average of 469.9 yards this year. UA is last in the conference when it comes to points allowed so far through eight games. Among FBS teams Sumlin's team currently ranks No. 119 out of 130 in total defense and No. 118 in scoring defense.
The Wildcats return home after two road games to face Oregon State this weekend. Sumlin will address the media Monday afternoon during his weekly press conference.
