Arizona just made two homerun hires on defense--taking Donte Williams from SJSU as a position coach and Marcel Yates from Boise St.
This is big because a) Yates runs a 4-2-5 and has had legit Top-25 FBS ranked defenses and b) both Yates and Williams are well-respected in California and are terrific recruiters. As a matter of fact, guys not even committed to SJSU were astounded by the move by Williams.
Casteel and co. did very little in terms of recruiting on defense. The pendulum just swung the other way, and now, arguably the Top 3 recruiters on the team are on the defensive side of the ball (Addae, Williams, and Yates).
Not sure if this will provide immediate ROI, but it's good to know that RichRod recognized the obvious deficiency and did something about it, even if it meant saying goodbye to a long-time friend.