Quick hitters from Arizona’s training-camp practice Thursday morning on campus:
* After Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly announced Wednesday that he would use two quarterbacks in the team’s opener, I asked Wildcats coach Rich Rodriguez if he would consider doing that with Anu Solomon and Brandon Dawkins. “Good for Brian,” Rodriguez said. “Yeah, I’d play both guys. I like Brian. He’s a good friend of mine. I’m not following Notre Dame. We don’t play them. But yeah, if we’ve got two guys ready to win with, we’ll play two of them. If we’ve got three, we’ll play three. Pretty simple.”
* Arizona freshman safety Gavin Robertson participated in the open portion of practice. He missed time last week because of an undisclosed injury.
* Defensive lineman Calvin Allen (undisclosed) remains out.
* Rodriguez said freshmen Jalen Cochran (6-2, 225) and Francisco Nelson (6-2, 215) have the long, athletic body type Arizona is looking for at the new OLB-DE hybrid position. They need to get stronger but “they’ve both got really good futures here,” Rodriguez said.
* Rodriguez said redshirt-freshman receiver Darick Holmes Jr. has been more productive and committed in camp. “We challenged him,” Rodriguez said. “He was kind of in the doghouse a little bit.”
* Redshirt senior Aiulua Fanene is firmly in the mix at nose tackle. He's up to 315 pounds after playing at around 290 last season. "We need big bodies, and he’s that,” Rodriguez said. “He’s every bit of that."
* The Wildcats worked out in full pads during the first half of the final two-a-day of training camp. Arizona will scrimmage on Saturday. Rodriguez is aiming to run 100-plus plays.
* The Wildcats went at it in the board drill and the "W" drill, where a tailback runs through three levels of defenders and blockers. It was hard to see the board drill with players gathered all around. Two guys I saw win their battles: freshman safety Tristan Cooper and walk-on tailback Jake Laudenslager.
* I asked Rodriguez about creating turnovers. He said the keys are creating confusion and getting a lot of guys around ball. The new-look Arizona defense will strive to do that.
* The defense spent a lot of time on turnover-related drills during the open part of practice, including falling on fumbles and trying to punch ball out from ball-carriers.
* The defense also worked on tackling using a pad shaped like a wheel. The wheel gets rolled, forcing players to hit a moving target.
* Regarding the new NCAA rule allowing coaches to interact more with recruits on social media, Rodriguez sees some benefit in it. But, he said, “I don’t think any kid is going to come to your school because you retweeted something they did."
