Arizona Football: Quarterback Situation is To Be Determined

The Arizona football team was geared up, and the stage was set for victory after a long day full of pre-game celebration. What happened next is difficult to accept for Wildcat fans and the team. 

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Wildcats fans are trying to make sense of what happened last night in Tucson with their Arizona football team; they’re looking for answers. While most fans still support their team, and a lot stayed through the third quarter, others are acting like fans of other Pac-12 teams and calling for heads. This burns me up. What’s worse than a fan of one of those other Pac-12 schools who calls for the coaches head each time the team loses?

When an Arizona Wildcats fan does the same thing, we cannot stoop to that level, we are smarter than that.

‘Step back from that ledge my friend!’

It’s one game for crying out loud. The Wildcats weren’t shut out; they scored 30 points on the night that was more than Oregon (20), and Arizona State (14) scored on the night. In fact, Mora thinks his team didn’t do that great a job stopping the rush. Also, the team improved in the second half, holding UCLA to 14 points vs. 42 in the first half. Encouraging.

Fun fact: Arizona made one less tackle than UCLA; 51 vs. 52.

How did Arizona Quarterbacks do last night? Let’s go through each one of their performances.

Anu Solomon: Started out great, but high snaps, turnovers, and an eventual injury ended his night. Anu tended to pass high and long to his receivers but did not throw an interception. He did an excellent job gaining yardage by rushing the ball.

• Completed four out of ten passes for only 55 yards, one of those passes was for a 34-yard TD to Nate Phillips.
• Rushed for 54 yards on seven attempts, mostly due to a lack of options, this would eventually lead to a head injury that took him out of the game.
• Fumbled the ball on a high snap which resulted in a turnover. Fumbled some other times, and recovered.
• Injured with 12:20 left in the half at the end of a 12-yard run, suffered an undisclosed injury that seems to be a head injury, he went to the locker room with his trainers, still no news on his status.
• He is the type of quarterback who needs to get warmed up and has often found his groove in the second half of past games. We’ll never know if he would have gotten his groove back or not.

Jerrard Randall:  Still out of options, Randall ended up rushing on most plays, able to catch the high snaps, passes were mostly short, threw an interception but scored an exciting 39-yard rushing touchdown.

• Completed a miserable four out of 16 passes for 45 yards, one of those passes was for a 16-yard TD to David Richards. Threw an interception
• Rushed for 128 yards on 16 attempts, mostly due to a lack of options as well. Only Nick Wilson rushed for more yardage; Nick rushed 24 times for 136 yards.
• Racked up 148 rushing yards, but netted out to 128 due to one very disheartening play where he suffered a loss for 20 yards, I believe due to a bad snap.

Brandon Dawkins:  Did pretty well for the short time he was able to play.

• Completed two out of two passes for a total of 15 yards.
• Rushed once for four yards

I am predicting that Anu will be out at least a week or more if he has a concussion, and the other two quarterbacks will be battling in practice all week for the starting job. If it was me? I would start Dawkins and have Randall play running back.  That said, Randall needs to be available to be the backup quarterback, and you wouldn’t risk injuries by having him play. Not many options, unless commit Khalil Tate can graduate two months early?

Speaking to Mrs. Tate, Khalil’s mom, she has some great advice for Wildcats fans to remember, “Arizona are still the Pac-12 South champs! Even the best teams have a bad game. What’s most important is that the team regroups and gets back out there with even more determination to win again. Beardown!”  She is a wise woman with a great attitude.

Arizona Wildcats

I don’t buy that the team didn’t try hard, they did. What I saw was a lot of nerves. You could just feel it on the Wildcat walk; the players mostly had somber looks, you could tell the team wanted this win. You know those days in your life where nothing seems to go your way? Well, that was Saturday, September 26th for the Wildcats.

The bottom line for me was not that the team didn’t try, it was that they were making mental mistakes. I don’t know what it is about the Bruins, but somehow our team gets spooked when we play them, or it seems that way.

In the first half, the mistakes started with our Quarterback and his Center. I must have counted at least 20 or more high snaps throughout the contest. Anu Solomon was not able to handle the high snaps that resulted in critical turnovers. Anu also was back to putting too much power into his passes throwing passes over players heads. He may have been able to adjust in the second half, but we will never know.

Sep 26, 2015; Tucson, AZ, USA; Arizona Wildcats running back Jared Baker (23) runs the ball under pressure from UCLA Bruins linebacker Kene Orjioke (46) during the fourth quarter at Arizona Stadium. UCLA won 56-30. Mandatory Credit: Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports

In contrast, Randall was able to handle the majority of the high snaps even though he’s one inch shorter than Anu. Randall couldn’t get the ball far enough into his receivers hands, and threw an interception, but I think there’s a good chance that can get fixed with practice.

In what seemed like a calculated move on UCLA’s part, the Bruins decided to run out onto the field at the SAME TIME as our Wildcats! I was flabbergasted honestly. I just found myself cheering on the Cats in red, fireworks and all, and then my view quickly filled up with white UCLA flags. It seemed the coaches wanted to avoid any booing from the electrified full stadium of red gear wearing pumped up Wildcats fans.

We will never know if it was planned that way or if it was a mistake of some kind, so I will try to keep an open mind about it, but it was confusing for the fans. They were cheering for the Wildcats, and then it was like we were cheering for both teams. Don’t know if this had anything to do with the mood of the Wildcats, but it pissed off the fans, and the Bruins were feeling great!

I had a ton of fun on GameDay, and I am slowly getting over my hangover, not from what I drank at Frog n’ Firkin, but from what happened to our Cats yesterday. I leave you with some sights and sounds through my eyes..and a message from Samajie Grant, the only player who has said anything thus far that I have found.

And Samajie Grant share’s his feelings with the Twitter-verse:

On to the next one: Arizona plays Stanford at Standford at 7:30 p.m., Pac -12 channel

Next: Arizona Football : UCLA Pummels Cats In Tucson