The world of recruiting is ever-changing and that is certainly the case for Arizona Football as incoming linebacker transfer Treshaun Hayward is no longer with the team.
It has been a busy off-season for first-year Arizona Football head coach Jedd Fisch. Continuing to adjust with the Wildcats and the ever-changing world of college football recruiting, he now will lose a player in Treshaun Hayward who just transferred Arizona a few weeks ago.
A former standout linebacker at Western Michigan from 2017-20, Hayward was the graduate transfer that was expected to have a big role with the Wildcats in 2021. However, it appears that won’t happen after all.
Making news on Tuesday afternoon, Arizona Daily Star’s Michael Lev reported, and Wildcat Authority’s Jason Scheer first confirmed that Hayward is no longer with the program.
Hayward was the Defensive Player of the Year in the Mid-American Conference back in 2019.
According to Lev, Fisch would not comment on the matter, and while the news of Hayward is unfortunate, luckily, the staff has done a tremendous job in bringing in multiple players at linebacker this off-season to help alleviate the loss here.
If you may recall, Arizona has added Jerry Roberts (Bowling Green), Malik Reed (Wisconsin), Kenny Hebert (Vanderbilt), and Jason Harris (Colorado) all via the NCAA Transfer Portal in recent weeks. So at least the team has options for 2021.
Plus, with the transfer eligibility rule changes for this coming season, all should have a chance to come in and compete right away.
While the loss of Hayward hurts, it is really hard to miss a player that had yet to play anyways. Either way, Arizona should be fine at linebacker as they also return Anthony Pandy, Issaiah Johnson, and Derrick Mourning, and also have four incoming linebacker commits for 2021 according to 247Sports.
Overall, the defense should be improved this coming season and we are curious to see what this group looks like, even without Hayward.