Arizona Football: Freshman Grant Gunnell shines in win over UCLA

As the Arizona Football defense shined in their win over UCLA on Saturday evening, the true freshman quarterback Grant Gunnell also played well!

It’s been over 24 hours since the Arizona Football team got the gritty win over the UCLA Bruins at home on Saturday evening, and somewhere in the midst of that win was the solid performance by the freshman, Grant Gunnell.

Can’t say I wasn’t at least a little worried about the absence of senior Khalil Tate coming into the game against UCLA, as true a freshman was making his first start against a conference foe.

Arizona Wildcats

Coming in, it just sounded like a less-than-stellar situation for the Cats, also add in the fact that running back J.J. Taylor would be out too! It just seemed like the Wildcats were going to have to have a near perfect game in order to win.

From the start, Arizona looked a little rocky offensively, managing just six first half points, despite out-gaining the Bruins 224 to 185. Most notably, Gunnell went 17-29 passing for a 170 yards, which was decent, but he certainly looked inconsistent at times.

Luckily in the second half is when Gunnell and the Cats turned it on, outscoring the Bruins 14-10.  Gunnell would go an impressive 12-15 passing for 182 yards and a touchdown. More importantly, he went a perfect, 8-8 in the fourth quarter.

So while he did look like a freshman at times against the Bruins, he also showed fans to be a capable quarterback that could be a great complimentary piece to Tate, if Tate can’t play.

So should that mean Tate is done? No, and that’s no slight to Gunnell either. Tate is the senior quarterback who has been with the program for four years, and has showed us nothing that says he shouldn’t be deserving of playing time.

If he’s 100 percent healthy, he’s an electric player that make this offense incredibly dynamic and hard to scheme against. As for Gunnell, he certainly has a bright future, but his future is not yet.

Unless Tate physically can’t play, you have to play him and the outside predictions that Tate won’t play another minute here after one start by Gunnell against UCLA in the place of an injured Tate, is inappropriate to suggest right now to say the least.

At Zona Zealots, we’re happy to see Gunnell succeed and continue to wish him success in the future! We hope that when he’s needed he can continue to step up! As always, Bear Down, Arizona!