Arizona football is about to start up again with summer workouts and eventually training camp, but award watchlists have started to come out. Senior defensive lineman Tre Smith was added to the Lott IMPACT Award preseason watchlist.
The award is given annually to the nation’s top defensive player, and is named after former USC safety Ronnie Lott. It is also given to the player who exhibits the characteristics of IMPACT (Integrity, Maturity, Performance, Academics, Community, and Tenacity) the most.
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Of the 42 players named the watchlist, Smith is one of five Big 12 players. He was named alongside Texas Tech’s A.J. Holmes & Ben Roberts, TCU’s Jamel Johnson, and BYU’s Cade Uluave.
Last year, the award was given to Ohio State’s Caleb Downs, and the finalists were Georgia’s C.J. Allen, Miami’s Rueben Bain, and Texas Tech’s Jacob Rodriguez. The previous year, it was Colorado’s Travis Hunter that took home the award.
All of those players are now in the NFL, and after going through injury struggles last season, Smith hopes to have a similar endgame.
For Smith, the hardest part of his recovery was the timetable. He only played four games last season before shutting it down. Since then, it’s been nonstop recovery and work. Smith has had to adjust his mindset to how he attacks the recovery, and now only sees it as one big blessing.
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“I’ve been through an achilles before, so it’s not exactly the same, but it’s just monotonous, like you got to do it every day, and you don’t feel like necessarily doing it all the time, but it’s either I do that or I don’t get to play and chase my dream,” said Smith during spring ball.
Smith is on the same path as Treydan Stukes, another NFL player, was on before last season. If Stukes was the “Unc” of last year’s team, Smith is definitely the unc of this year’s team. Actually, he’s not known as unc but rather “Mr. Redline.”
“I mean Mr. Redline himself, watching him, his technique, his mannerism, is just so funny to see redline in breakfast, redline in meetings, redline on and off the field,” defensive lineman Leroy Palu said in the spring.
Smith has always been a leader off the field, and it took little to no time to reestablish his leadership on the field.
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“Tre had a big voice last year, but when he got hurt, that voice disappeared,” defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales said during spring practice. “Guys that don’t play can lead from the side in certain things, but when it comes down to actually winning games, that guy better be on the field. Tre has done a phenomenal job.”
As long as he can stay on the field, Smith should be able to not only lead the Wildcat defense this season, but he could potentially be a finalist for the Lott Impact Award.
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