Portal, patience appear to be Arizona Wildcats’ best options to add a quarterback (or two)

Jedd Fisch has been an open book so far as coach of the Arizona Wildcats. He has made himself available to the media multiple times. He has made his assistants available. He has been active on social media. He has had a thorough answer for almost every question thrown his way.

But Fisch has been coy about one particular topic — perhaps because it’s still evolving.

Fisch hasn’t offered many specifics about the UA quarterback situation. He assuredly has a plan. But it’s one that requires careful thought and execution. It’s the position with the smallest margin for error.

The Arizona quarterback room has shrunk over the past month. Sophomore Grant Gunnell — the centerpiece of the 2020 Wildcats’ offense and marketing campaign — transferred to Memphis after the firing of Kevin Sumlin. Redshirt junior Rhett Rodriguez transferred to Louisiana-Monroe to reunite with his father.

Then a quarterback who hadn’t gotten here yet escaped the pocket. Clay Millen of Snoqualmie, Washington — a three-or-four-star prospect, depending on the website — decommitted from Arizona on Thursday. Millen had been the highest-rated player in the Wildcats’ 2021 class.

Those transactions leave Arizona with two scholarship quarterbacks on its roster: freshman Will Plummer and redshirt sophomore Kevin Doyle. Both had bona fides coming out of high school. Plummer displayed promise in three appearances last season.

It’s a good place to start. It’s not enough.

Fisch said his “perfect number” of scholarship quarterbacks is five. So how do the Wildcats approach that figure, with National Signing Day (Feb. 3) around the corner and almost every top quarterback in the class of 2021 having already signed?

“That is the million-dollar question,” said Brandon Huffman, the national recruiting editor for 247Sports.com. “I would anticipate they’re going to hit the portal hard.”

The NCAA transfer portal might be the best means for the Wildcats to add a quarterback or two. It certainly presents more options than what’s left among high school prospects.

But who the best fits are — and when to bring them in — remains unclear. Like a pass play in the offense Fisch and his staff are about to install, there are many possible routes.

What they want

Before we dive into strategies and personnel in the transfer market, let’s look at the program any prospective passer will be joining.

Fisch has coached offense his entire career. He has worked extensively with quarterbacks. His influences include Brian Billick, Mike Shanahan and Sean McVay.

Fisch said his scheme will be fast and aggressive and will present “an illusion of complexity” to mask its simplicity. Quarterbacks operated from under center about 35% of the time when Fisch was a coordinator at Michigan and UCLA from 2015-17.

What are the traits a quarterback must have to run his system?

“The first thing I would say is I want someone smart. But you can’t just be smart,” Fisch said. “I want someone tough. But you can’t just be tough. You have to have the skill set that’s required to throw the ball and play the position.

“I want to know if someone’s a good decision-maker. Can someone throw with anticipation and timing? And are they accurate? So smart and tough lay the foundation. Decision-making, timing and accuracy are kind of like the principles behind it.

“And then I like guys that can chuck it deep. I want to be able to stretch the field. ... I want teams that we play to have to defend the length and the width of the field.”

The coach with whom Fisch has the longest relationship is Jimmie Dougherty. Dougherty will serve as Arizona’s passing-game coordinator and quarterbacks coach. He has spent a chunk of his career coaching wide receivers but played quarterback at Missouri — under former UA coach Larry Smith — and has intimate knowledge of how important that position is.

Dougherty worked under Jim Harbaugh at the University of San Diego from 2004-06. They helped develop Josh Johnson, who threw 113 touchdown passes and only 15 interceptions with the Toreros and was on an NFL roster as recently as November.

“The connection that the coach and the quarterback have to have on a daily basis,” Dougherty said, “I learned that at a young age, how important and critical that is to the team.”

What they have

Dougherty had a front-row seat for Plummer’s unexpected debut last season. Dougherty was coaching for UCLA. Gunnell suffered a shoulder injury on the first play from scrimmage, and Plummer had to come in cold off the bench.

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The Gilbert High School product competed hard and flashed potential, accumulating 200 total yards. But he completed only 17 of 35 passes and threw two late interceptions.

For the season, Plumer connected on 43 of 80 passes (53.8%) for 388 yards with zero touchdowns and three picks. He also rushed for 95 yards.

“He’s a great competitor,” Dougherty said. “He’s tough. He kind of got thrown into the fire a little bit. But I’m excited to work with him more and with all the quarterbacks.”

Doyle has been in the program longer, having signed with Arizona as part of the class of 2018. But he has yet to appear in a game for the Wildcats, his development slowed by a shoulder injury suffered in the summer of 2019 and the shortening of spring practice in ’20.

Like Plummer, Doyle was a three-star prospect coming out St. John’s College High School in Washington, D.C. They might be the only scholarship quarterbacks on the roster for Arizona’s first spring practice under Fisch.

“There’s a lot of talent there,” Dougherty said of the UA quarterback room. “I’m excited to get around those guys more.

“We’re gonna roll the balls out and let them have at it.”

Who they could get

National Signing Day is about 2½ weeks away. In the old days, Fisch and his staff would have had an opportunity to “flip” a quarterback who had committed to another school but had yet to sign. But almost every highly regarded quarterback signed in December.

Only one quarterback who’s ranked ahead of Millen in 247Sports.com’s composite ratings has yet to sign — Chase Mason of Viborg, South Dakota. But Mason has committed to play baseball at Nebraska.

Mason is the 34th-ranked quarterback in the 2021 class. Millen is No. 36. The next-highest-ranked unsigned quarterback is Grayson James of Duncansville, Texas. He’s No. 72.

“The hardest part is not being able to go out and evaluate quarterbacks the next two weeks before signing day,” Huffman said. “I don’t anticipate they’re going to go too far down the list and just take a body. It wouldn’t surprise me if they just said to heck with 2021 and tried to put their eggs into two quarterbacks in 2022.”

That’s certainly possible — especially when you consider that Plummer still has five years to play four after the NCAA granted every player an extra year of eligibility because of the pandemic.

But Arizona can’t go into the ’21 season with only two scholarship quarterbacks. Fisch and his staff will have to explore the transfer portal.

The portal features eight unsigned quarterbacks who had four-star ratings coming out of high school, and another 21 who had three-star ratings. They entered the portal for a variety of reasons, with playing time typically atop the list. Unlike other positions, only one quarterback can play at a time.

The headliners include South Carolina’s Ryan Hilinski, who’s from Southern California and played in high school with Arizona receiver Stanley Berryhill III; and West Virginia’s Austin Kendall, who started his college career at Oklahoma.

Hilinski and Kendall represent two distinct directions Fisch and his staff could go. Hilinski, a sophomore in 2020, has three more years of eligibility; Kendall, a graduate transfer, has only one.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if they took a grad transfer and a young transfer for long-term purposes,” Huffman said.

Another option would be to sign someone soon and wait until after spring practice to add another quarterback — or push the entire process to the post-spring period, when, history shows, more QBs are likely to come on the market.

“No question,” Huffman said. “I could see them getting one ASAP and then get somebody else (in) the next wave.”

Last year, USC’s JT Daniels entered the transfer portal in mid-April. He committed to Georgia in late May.

The Bulldogs’ starter in 2020 was expected to be graduate transfer Jamie Newman. But he opted out in early September. Daniels took over in November after fully recovering from a knee injury.

When it comes to quarterbacks in modern college football, you never know what twists and turns are coming next.