To get ready for the upcoming Arizona football season, All Sports Tucson offers a countdown, which will include history notes and a look ahead to the season — a good way to keep Arizona football on the mind in the summer months leading up to fall camp in early August and then kickoff against New Mexico on Aug. 31 in the start of the Brent Brennan era.
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS PREVIOUS DAYS IN THE COUNTDOWN
A LOOK BACK — NO. 27 LANCE BRIGGS
With it being the 27th day until kickoff between the Lobos and Wildcats, the best player to wear No. 27 for Arizona is linebacker Lance Briggs, who was a standout for Arizona during its lean years of 1999 to 2002. He was a three-team All-Pac-10 selection who went on to play in seven Pro Bowls while with the Chicago Bears. Briggs finished his Arizona career with 308 tackles, 10.5 sacks, 36 tackles for losses, three interceptions, 10 passes deflected, five forced fumbles and four fumble recoveries in 33 games at strong side linebacker. Briggs serves as a Bears analyst for NBC Sports Chicago’s Football Aftershow. Briggs is a lifelong comic book reader and fan. In 2020, he co-created The Trap, a science fiction original graphic novel. Briggs remains active supporting the Wildcats attending many alumni events.
NO. 27 IN 2024 — S OWEN GOSS
Goss, 6-foot and 202 pounds, is a senior who had 28 starts at Colgate, an FCS program, over the previous three seasons. After entering the transfer portal, he committed to Arizona. He was an All-Patriot League First Team defensive back selection last year. He was also the team captain. He was fourth on the team with 58 tackles and ranked third in solo stops with 41. He led the Raiders with two interceptions and three blocked kicks and also had four passes defended and a forced fumble. Both interceptions came against Georgetown (Oct. 21), the first one resulting in a 59-yard pick=six on the Hoyas’ first possession. All three blocked kicks came against Bucknell (Oct. 28). The performance earned him national FCS Special Teams Player of the Week honors.
NOTE
GOAZCATS.com rated sophomore linebacker Kamuela Kaaihue as Friday’s player of the practice (Arizona did not practice on Saturday and will resume Sunday). He made an impact in 11-on-11 drills and 7-on-7 drills in the running and passing game. He had two sacks, a tackle in the backfield, a forced fumble and an interception.
THEY SAID IT
“I don’t want you to feel like we’ve been doing terrible out there, but that’s just how practices go. We have to get all our formations, protections, motions and shifts, all of that stuff in and when we get all that stuff in, we can start settling down and really start to judge performance.” — Arizona offensive coordinator Dino Babers after mentioning that the Wildcats’ offense is behind its defense at this early point of fall camp, less than week after it started.
FOLLOW @JAVIERJMORALES ON TWITTER!
ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.
Recommended for you
