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Here's the article, obviously about Arizona, but has a lot that speaks to who T-Mac is as a player and person https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/40918248/arizona-noah-fifita-aiming-big-12-championship-2024 -
By TheSpecialJuan · Posted
https://x.com/justinm_nfl/status/1916355909313233403?s=46&t=xeIgh_-Vr2aKxBkBJdfnKA -
Was a crazy day today for me with the Wrexham game starting just into the 4th Round and then them clinching promotion for the 3rd straight year. So between all that celebrating today and just trying to follow the rest of our draft, I purposefully stayed out of this thread all day to give it a good read through later, lol Here's some responses to some of the things said today, sorry, it's a bit lengthy, but I've gone like 24 hours without getting to talk T-Mac, I was having withdrawals, hahaha. All of this The new staff was not good this past year, to the point that the fan base were calling for heads to roll just a few weeks into the season, it was pretty ugly on the Arizona boards. The offensive play calling was pretty atrocious as well, and as mentioned here, Fifita took a massive step back this year and was constantly missing T-Mac when he got open and thus the bad/late throws were also causing some of the contested catches he had to make. Plus like you said, the entire offense was just to throw to T-Mac no matter what the coverage because we had no other receiving weapons. Teams were constantly double teaming him directly off the snap and it was very rare for there to not be a safety already over the top on him before every snap too. In a way, I'm actually surprised he put up the stats that he did, everything was stacked against him and he still put up 1,300+ yards. I'm actually not sure it has been mentioned, as it was something I never brought up this past year in talking about him on purpose, I didn't want it to sound like I was making any excuses for him, and I don't remember seeing others talk about it as I might have then jumped in too. He missed all of fall camp and only started practicing days before the season opener and at least publicly, it wasn't certain he'd even play the first game, which of course he then went out and put up 300 yards lol. He also tweaked his ankle at one point about 5-6 weeks into the season. Came out for a play or two to get checked, then came back in and kept playing but was a step or two slow the rest of the game but seemed mostly fine the rest of the year. In fact, for a few weeks after that, there was a vocal portion of the fan base that were hoping he'd just shut it down for the season because how bad the offense was and felt he was hurting his draft stock and risking injury at the same time. But as everyone also knew, he wasn't going to quit on his teammates, in particular his QB in their last year together (will get to that later) I do think the original injury and lack of fall camp did keep him a half step slower than the year before at times, but it didn't stop him from still being an All American. This is also another reason T-Mac is a great fit with Bryce, once they get their chemistry down, the two are going to thrive on off script plays. T-Mac and Arizona's QB had played together since the 8th grade and were best friends, they basically shared a brain on the football field and it showed. It's given him so much experience working off script, while finding and sitting in the holes in coverage to give his QB a big target as they scramble. Yep, smart, swagger, but also a GREAT teammate. When Arizona's coaches left after 2023 season, the assumption was that T-Mac, Fifita, and our top LB (who all went to the same HS together, and with Mason Graham too) were going to follow them to Washington. In fact, T-Mac was a QB until 8th grade and switched to WR only because of Fifita, he's thrown a TD pass for us too, so he can be used in gadget plays. The day after we hired the new coach, he invited any players to come and talk football in his office, T-Mac and Fifita organized a large group and they talked with him for 2 hours. When it was done, all the players left but T-Mac and Fifita stayed back and basically told the coach they were staying and were going to keep the team together as much as they could and they did, we only lost a few players (too bad the new coaches sucked lol). Both of them also then turned down some NIL money and told them to use it to give to other players on the team to help keep as much of it together. There's a good ESPN article about this a while back, maybe I'll try to find it. But THIS is the type of kid you want to build around, he's the full package and it's why I never missed a chance to let you guys know he was always the player we should have been targeting.
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