Arizona held its biggest scrimmage of the fall Saturday afternoon as the Wildcats went somewhere around 120 plays to wrap up the second full week of practice in preparation for the upcoming season. The coaching staff continued to rotate players through different groups this week, including Saturday, but the rest of the weekend will be used for the coaches to hone in on the two-deep depth chart.
The “camp” portion of practice is now complete and the staff is going to treat the next two weeks of practice as a game week in preparation for the season opener against Utah.
Head coach Kevin Sumlin and quarterback Grant Gunnell joined the media afterward to recap things and discuss the next steps in the process for the Wildcats. Here are some quick notes as Arizona finished up its second week.
▶ The running back unit continues to shine, defensive line making strides
Sumlin continues to point to the strength of the team as being the running back unit, which has continued to look impressive from the sounds of it. Saturday it was Gary Brightwell who the UA head coached singled out and said had an “excellent” scrimmage. Sophomore running back Michael Wiley also continues to earn praise from the team and right now he looks to be in place as the top backup to Brightwell. Last night running backs coach AJ Steward mentioned that Wiley has made strides even from the spring with what he’s shown the last couple weeks so that should be the Wildcats’ 1-2 punch at the position heading into the season.
The defensive line has been the other bright spot of the last two weeks and Sumlin pointed out that group once again after Saturday’s scrimmage. He continues to praise graduate transfers Roy Lopez and Aaron Blackwell as the standout players up front, but it sounds like the entire group has been making continued progress during the fall.
The next step will be figuring out the depth chart.
“We’re two weeks away, and we’re gonna have those personnel discussions this afternoon and tomorrow,” Sumlin said. “Then go into two legitimate game weeks with guys that we see offensively, defensively and special teams getting on the plane and going to Utah.”
▶ Arizona’s offense focused on fine tuning itself
As for the overall look at the offense the Wildcats are focused on ironing out some things right now. Gunnell feels confident with the direction of the offense at this stage but admits there are some growing pains the team is going through at this stage that it will look to get through in the two weeks before the opener. Gunnell tossed an interception during today’s scrimmage, so he is still not completely in top form but overall the offense is headed in the right direction.
“I feel like all the scrimmages have been good for us,” he said Saturday. “In camp that’s the best you can get. Right now it’s the best time of my life because I get to go out there against a defense live to see how the offense is going and get through some growing pains.”
Gunnell called everything else the offense is working on “little stuff” including lining up in the right spots, getting in the right formations, knowing the signals and receivers running the right depth with their routes.
It is going to be interesting to see how the Wildcats look in front of Gunnell as starting center Josh McCauley continues to work through his knee injury. Veteran Steven Bailey and freshman Josh Baker were taking reps with the first unit today in his place and it won’t be a shock to see either player up front by the time the game against Utah rolls around. Baker has been a quick learner and is starting to gain some traction as the potential starting center assuming McCauley can’t go.
Redshirt junior walk-on Tyson Gardner also was able to get some time with the starting offensive unit at right guard today. It will be interesting to see how much he sees the field in the early going.
▶ Linebacker, safety units remain Sumlin’s concern
It’s not ideal but Arizona is working through some injuries on the defensive side of the ball right now that could impact the team once the season arrives. When asked about his biggest concerns at this stage in the process Sumlin responded with two positions that shouldn’t come as a shock. Arizona’s depth at linebacker and safety is a bit worrisome for the Wildcats head coach. UA could end up leaning on some walk-on players at linebacker while the safety spots will bring some new faces into the mix.
“We’re a little thin at linebacker and safety, so we’ve gotta hold up there,” Sumlin said. “Then make some adjustments as we said before a couple weeks ago. Get our best people on the field.”
▶ Backup quarterback situation still being sorted out
Arizona still has not yet determined the order of the quarterbacks behind Gunnell as of now but that will take place over the next couple days. Different players have performed well at different times so there is certainly going to have to be some decisions made by the staff to figure out who it feels most comfortable with. Although he struggled at times during the spring and early in the fall there has been some positive reviews about Will Plummer as of late and he is a bit of a wildcard in the scenario. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that he could push for the job with Rhett Rodriguez and Kevin Doyle.
“That’s gonna be part of our personnel discussion here in the next 24 hours,” the UA head coach said. “... I gotta look at the tape again, Noel and I, and the operation from all of those scrimmages and today then we’ll settle down and will have a two-deep going by Monday. Those personnel decisions are based on what’s transpired over the last two weeks.”
Sumlin said accuracy over the last two weeks will be at the top of the list when it comes to evaluating who the backup quarterback will be followed by leadership. The last two scrimmages were focused on specific situations and that was done to put some pressure on players such as the backup quarterbacks to see how they perform. How the signal callers “operate in those situations” is going to be another key factor in determining the No. 2 man behind Gunnell.
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