UA football team facing adversity, criticism
by Steve Rivera on Oct. 18, 2011, under SportsArizona coach Jeff Hammerschmidt has heard the criticism. And he’s OK with it.
It comes when you’re a coach – head guy or otherwise. And the criticism has come in bunches lately, particularly last week, when it seemed Hammerschmidt’s special-teams unit, well, didn’t have anything special about it.
A missed field goal, a missed extra point, a blocked kick and a perfectly executed fake punt constituted Arizona’s laundry list of demise against Oregon State last week and the beginning of the end for then-head coach Mike Stoops, who was fired two days after losing 37-27 to the Beavers.
Arizona is 1-5. Players will not be made available to the media until after Thursday’s game with UCLA, which will kick off at 6 p.m. at Arizona Stadium.
“If the guys don’t play great, you get a lot of criticism,” Hammerschmidt said. “We’ve had games before when we did well on special teams and we got a lot of credit. It’s one of those things, if we don’t make field goals and do some right things and get punts blocked … you get criticism.”
