Pacific Soundbites: Could the Arizona Wildcats surge in 2013?

Listen to the entirety of the SB Nation at Pac-12 Media Day 2013 podcast!

David Gerhardt, Ralphie Report (DG): We haven't mentioned Arizona at all. I'd point out that their offense is set up to be good enough. They don't have to do much better on defense to go for a run in the South as well.

Anthony Cassino, UW Dawg Pound: They got to get a quarterback though. That's a big part of their offense.

Avinash Kunnath, Pacific Takes: No one knows who the quarterback is.

DG: But they've got everything else on offense. Rich Rodriguez has developed some guys at places he's been who've been not great quarterbacks overall into guys that have taken their teams to a lot of wins.

Ben Haber, House of Sparky: I think for Arizona though, what it comes down to, as you said defense. They can't outscore teams like Oregon can. The offense is good, but it's not that good. So they're going to have to play a lot better defense. Like ASU did, we had some success because we scored 38 points a game (probably no one on offense, being an offensive team). But the defense caused a lot of turnovers, so it gave them opportunities.

Arizona needs to be like a bend and break kind of team (bend but don't break) on defense to have a shot at surprising some people.

Cody Ulm, House of Sparky: I think that Arizona's defense is going to be better than most people think too. You've got most of those guys coming back. They're going to have a year under their belt.

AK: Rich Rodriguez had a funny comment about that, "The good news is all the guys are coming back. The bad news is they're all back."

CU: But honestly I think it is a good thing actually. The talent they had last year had a lot more to do with all those things. In terms of what they're working with, they could have a more impressive season this season.