Univ. of Arizona star used social media to block potential coach hire
One of the biggest carrots a college football program can dangle in front of top quarterback recruits is the idea that they won’t just be “system quarterbacks” who tend to get ignored on NFL draft day.
Khalil Tate, the Arizona Wildcats’ golden boy signal caller, knows this, and he used it as a stick to influence Arizona’s coaching search after they fired Rich Rodriguez in scandal-ridden disgrace.
The ‘Cats aren’t exactly the favorites to win the Pac-12, but Tate — at least in his own mind — is an NFL hopeful. As such, he had a simple reply to Arizona’s consideration of Navy’s Ken Niumatalolo as head coach, one he posted to Twitter back in January.
https://twitter.com/PardoSportsTalk/status/952629235818139649
Arizona hired Kevin Sumlin instead as its head coach, who along with Noel Mazzone at offensive coordinator installed the spread offense at Texas A&M in order to better prepare quarterbacks for the NFL’s high-flying, read-progression-heavy passing game.
The triple option, and its counterpart the read option, enjoyed a brief fad status in the pros in the early 2010s, but the quarterbacks who made their name off of it, Robert Griffin III and Colin Kaepernick, are non-factors in the league today — at least on the field (Kaepernick’s issues off it are a different matter).
Tate ran the read option for Arizona in 2017 under Rodriguez.
Tate also saw how Lamar Jackson fell behind the curve in the 2018 draft’s loaded quarterback class. Louisville played to Jackson’s run-heavy style. NFL teams took one look at that and all passed except the Ravens, who took Jackson with the 32nd and final pick of the draft’s opening round.
Sumlin is expected to have Tate playing a pro-style offense to avoid having him fall into the stereotype of yet another “athlete” QB who’s not smart enough or well-practiced enough in basic NFL quarterback skills to succeed at the pro level.
Tate knows that his tweets had influence, and he used the platform very much intentionally to make his voice heard.
As Bleacher Report noted, Tate’s actions were part of a greater shift toward players in college football taking greater ownership of their development. Unlike in basketball where the college game is virtually irrelevant to the NBA other than serving as a pit stop for “one and done” players, football is more like a traditional internship for non-sports jobs that require a college education.
“I knew exactly what I was doing when I tweeted that out,” Tate said. “I don’t do Twitter. When I tweet something, I download the app, tweet, then delete the app from my phone. So when I tweet, it’s important.”
“I had to make sure I was heard, make sure the team was heard, because my teammates didn’t want to run the triple option, either,” Tate continued. “So the idea was to tweet it out, let it get traction, then delete it. I knew people reading it would say, ‘Why did he delete it?’ But that just magnifies it more.”
Arizona president Dr. Robert Robbins saw it and read it, saying afterward, “I saw it, and I thought, ‘Wow, man, the power of social media.'”
Tate turned the conversation to the power players have in a competitive marketplace where schools compete to recruit their services.
“I didn’t want to go about the situation and then just be, OK, he’s the new coach, I don’t care. Because I did care. We did care as a team,” Tate said. “I knew tweeting that would create a buzz and maybe not get (Niumatalolo) as our coach. I think Ken Niumatalolo is a great coach. It’s nothing against him. But I think it was important to say what I had to say and let everyone know that we’re not just going to be quiet and let things happen. We’re going to be heard.”
This also speaks to the world of difference in college football between schools like Alabama, where Nick Saban is part of their brand, and schools like Arizona, which struggle to recruit because players don’t know what they’re getting themselves into as far as whether the school will be a good place for their pro aspirations.
After all, everyone knows that Saban is basically running the NFL equivalent of an NBA G-League team in Tuscaloosa.
Niumatalolo and his triple option don’t have that cachet. As Tate even pointed out, the triple option’s more run-heavy attack compared to its read option evolution involves quarterbacks getting hit a lot more often.
So of course the combination of more potential for injury and less potential for big money in the pros would spook Tate. And that was enough to get him to take to the social media airwaves to air his opinion.
We could be seeing a revolution in the way football is played below the professional level, and for the first time in history, it’s the players looking out for themselves that is driving the change.
To paraphrase Karl Marx, “Football players of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your helmets.”
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