The Arizona Wildcats put themselves in a tough position when they fired head coach Mike Stoops midway through the 2011 regular season and found themselves without an incumbent head coach for a couple of months. When Rich Rodriguez was hired in December, Arizona finally recovered to the point where they could start rebuilding relationships with recruits, but they didn't make enough dents.
Ben Glicksman of Sports Illustrated gives his grades of new coaches being hired, and Rodriguez comes near the bottom.
D. Despite being hired Nov. 22 (earlier than every other coach on this list), Rodriguez wasn't able to sign even one four- or five-star recruit. And he missed on some big names. Fuller -- a seemingly perfect candidate to serve as RichRod's West Coast Denard Robinson -- spurned the Wildcats in favor of UCLA. That's especially brutal given the Bruins already had T.J. Millweard, a three-star pro-style quarterback out of Fort Worth, in their class.
Clearly, Arizona's system doesn't require a lot of top-level talent, but it does need some talent to get things together. Now, if Rich-Rod ends up winning the Davonte Neal sweepstakes, Rodriguez will look a lot better. But right now Rodriguez doesn't have much to hang his hat on in this recruiting class.
To read more about each coach and their early recruiting grade, click here for the SI article.
To discuss Rich Rod and Arizona football recruiting, Arizona Desert Swarm is where you want to go.