College Football Better Watch out for Rich Rod and Arizona in 2015

At the end of Rich Rodriguez's third year at his previous job, despite marked improvement, he was sent packing. Now, his current employer is hoping it can keep him around, especially with the progress he's made turning a program in shambles into a rising power.

While Wednesday's Fiesta Bowl ended with one of Arizona's many young stars making the kind of mistake that comes with not having been there before, the overall body of work in 2014 shows very clearly that Rodriguez has something good going in Tucson.

The fact Arizona was playing in such a high-profile game to begin with just three years after Rodriguez took over a team that had gone 2-10 was amazing in itself. Being able to come back from a 21-0 deficit in the first 10 minutes, with a chance to win it in the final seconds, only added to the improbable season the Wildcats put together with an offense overloaded with underclassmen.

It also sets the stage for what should be a huge 2015 for the Wildcats, a fourth season for Rodriguez that he didn't get at Michigan.

Picked to finish a distant fourth in the Pac-12's South Division, Arizona instead won the title and reached 10 wins for the first time since 1998. The final two games, including a blowout loss to Oregon in the conference championship, put a damper on what was accomplished earlier, but at the same time it figures to provide motivation for the many notables set to return next year. 

Those were the postgame comments that Arizona Daily Star beat writer Daniel Berk got from Scooby Wright, the sophomore linebacker whose rise from an unheralded 2-star recruit to the winner of three major national defensive awards epitomized how this 2014 Wildcats team came from nowhere. It also serves as evidence that in 2015 it could be even better, assuming offseason progress is made.

Besides Wright (who finished the year with a school-record 30 tackles for loss), Arizona brings back a power-packed offense led by redshirt freshman quarterback Anu Solomon, true freshman running back Nick Wilson and a receiving corps that had 20 catches in the Fiesta Bowl come from freshmen or sophomores.

Wilson, who received almost no national attention in a year when freshmen running backs seemed to be growing on trees, ran for 1,375 yards and 16 touchdowns in 2014. That included 86 yards and a score in the first half Wednesday before taking a blow to the head and leaving the game.

It was Solomon, though, whose blunder prevented yet another crazy comeback in a season full of frenetic finishes for Arizona. Sacked twice already on a drive that also saw him go 72 yards in less than two-and-a-half minutes, Solomon tried to extend the play on 3rd-and-goal from the 8-yard line and instead was sacked in bounds. The clock expired before the Wildcats could get another snap off. 

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Solomon threw for 335 yards on 28-of-49 passing, but he twice was picked off when he could have gotten rid of it and was also sacked eight times. For the season, he threw for 3,793 yards and 28 touchdowns, attempting 540 passes and suffering 38 sacks.

Had Arizona been able to score, get a two-point conversion and force overtime, it wouldn't have been that surprising. This was a team that scored 36 points in the fourth quarter of its Pac-12 opener against California, winning on a Hail Mary pass, for a third straight win by seven points or less.

Twelve days later, the Wildcats did something no other team did this season: beat Oregon, winning 31-24 in Eugene and briefly making Heisman winner Marcus Mariota look somewhat mortal.

But the fact that Solomon made a textbook "freshman mistake" also fit in with the idea that this Arizona team was playing far above expectations and was still a year away. This was evident in the 51-13 loss to Oregon in the Pac-12 title game and when the team looked like it was going to get run off the field at University of Phoenix Stadium as if it wasn't ready for prime time.

Though the Pac-12 South figures to again be loaded with Arizona State, UCLA, USC and Utah all bringing back plenty, it's unlikely the Wildcats will be as overlooked in 2015 as they were in 2014. 

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.