Wildcats kick off camp with a common bond

As junior safety Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles noted, the Arizona Wildcats can’t do anything about last year’s disappointing 3-9 season “because it already happened.”

But there’s plenty they can do to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The first step involves attitude. Coach Rich Rodriguez wants his players to have the same sense of urgency the team had in 2014, when it shocked the Pac-12 by winning the South Division. It hasn’t been quite the same since.

“If you’re a competitor and they’re keeping score, it’s gotta be really, really important to you,” said Rodriguez, whose team opened camp Monday evening. “Not that it wasn’t for us. But I think we probably weren’t mad enough about losing at times. This group is going to be ultra-competitive, and I’m going to try to force that issue.”

Rodriguez reiterated many of the themes he emphasized at Pac-12 Media Days, that Arizona needs to regain the edge that might have dulled over the past two seasons. His players seem to have gotten the message. They said last year’s experience — which included an eight-game losing streak — has brought the team closer together. Every player shares a common bond: None wants to finish last again.

“We don’t like how we went out last year,” junior receiver Shun Brown said. “Guys started to get hurt, and heads started to hang.” And now? “Everybody wants to win,” junior cornerback Jace Whittaker said. “That’s everybody’s thing this year.

“There was a lot of individuality last year, I felt like. Everybody was kind of more about me. This year it’s more like, we want to win as a team.”

Flannigan-Fowles expects team chemistry to improve, citing more intermingling among offensive and defensive players in the locker room. He and Brown hang out frequently and often go to breakfast together at Waffle House.

Whittaker said workouts were “10 times harder” this offseason than the previous one, and several players discussed the extra work they put in outside normal business hours.

“Nobody wants that taste in their mouth two years in a row,” Whittaker said. “We didn’t put all this work in this summer to finish in last place.”

The media predicted a second straight last-place finish in the annual poll revealed last week. The Wildcats don’t mind being underestimated.

“A lot of people (are) sleeping on us right now,” Brown said.

“But during the season we’re going to wake them up.”