{"id":488729,"date":"2026-01-03T05:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T05:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/488729\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T05:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T05:23:09","slug":"multiple-arizona-wildcats-football-defensive-starters-opt-out-of-holiday-bowl-per-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/488729\/","title":{"rendered":"Multiple Arizona Wildcats football defensive starters opt out of Holiday Bowl, per report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">SAN DIEGO\u2014Arizona\u2019s defense has been a major strength in 2025, particularly when it comes to stopping the pass. But that unit will be shorthanded for the Holiday Bowl against SMU.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JustinESports\/status\/2007241789644910618\"><strong>Justin Spears <\/strong>of the Arizona Daily Star<\/a> is reporting that defensive backs <strong>Dalton Johnson, Genesis Smith <\/strong>and <strong>Treydan Stukes<\/strong> will not play for the Wildcats on Friday night. Johnson and Stukes are seniors, while Smith is a junior who is expected to declare for the 2026 NFL Draft, and combined they have made 86 starts for the UA.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Arizona (9-3) ranks 4th nationally in pass defense, allowing 155.9 yards per game, leading the nation in opposing quarterback rating at 95.16. The Wildcats have intercepted 19 passes, leading to an FBS-best plus-16 turnover margin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Johnson is the UA\u2019s leading tackler, with 97, while Smith (75) is third and Stukes (52) is fifth. That trio has combined for nine interceptions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Stepping in for them in the secondary could be a pair of freshmen, <strong>Dajon Hinton<\/strong> and <strong>Coleman Patmon<\/strong>, along with redshirt sophomore <strong>Gavin Hunter<\/strong>. Hunter started the first two games this season for Stukes while he was recovering from knee surgery, while Patmon has appeared in all 12 games and Hinton the last four.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO\u2014Arizona\u2019s defense has been a major strength in 2025, particularly when it comes to stopping the pass.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":488730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[113875,1318,1317,1315,1316,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-488729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-arizona-football","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-ncaafootball","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115829499734960035","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}