Arizona quarterback Khalil Tate battled an ankle injury for much of the first half of the season.
Key numbers then: UA quarterback Khalil Tate had only eight rushing attempts in the opener against BYU, his lowest total for a game in which he played three-plus quarters. We examined the year-to-year rushing attempts of seven iconic dual-threat quarterbacks from the past 20 years and concluded that most of them continued to run the ball about the same amount after their breakout seasons.
What’s happened since: Tate rolled his left ankle against Houston, an injury that has bothered him periodically since.
Over a three-game stretch — against Houston, Oregon State and Southern Utah — Tate had only 15 rushing attempts. They netted 18 yards.
The Houston game was such a lopsided affair, it might not have mattered what Tate did. The Southern Utah and Oregon State games were one-sided the other way. Tate passed for a career-high 349 yards with five touchdowns against the Thunderbirds and had two more TD passes against the Beavers, who yielded 451 rushing yards to Wildcats other than Tate.
Things changed a bit the past two weeks. Tate had a season-high 13 rushes against USC, netting 38 yards. He had eight rushes against Cal for 40, including a season-long 17-yarder. Add those up, and it’s 21 carries for 78 yards — compared to 23 for 32 the first four weeks.
Tate’s average over the past two weeks — 10.5 attempts — is about what we expected under Noel Mazzone. It’s within the range of what Brett Hundley and Trevor Knight did under Mazzone — although far below Tate’s average of 16.9 attempts in the eight games in which he played three-plus quarters last season.
Progress made? Yes.
