Arizona Wildcats football: RichRod on Khalil Tate’s progress, spring ball, OL depth

After signing autographs and chatting with fans for an hour at Arizona’s “Fan Appreciation Day,” Rich Rodriguez was ready to talk football.

The sixth-year coach sat down on the stairway just past the Wildcats locker room inside the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility and discussed a variety of topics in an exclusive interview with the Star on Saturday.

Rodriguez had a lot to say about the new NCAA football reforms, and we’ll get to that at a later date. In the meantime, here are some of Rodriguez’s takes on the current UA squad as the Wildcats head toward summer workouts:

On QB Khalil Tate’s breakout performance in the final spring scrimmage: “It helped him. He’d had a pretty solid spring. But that was the best he had played. I don’t necessarily believe in guys that are ‘gamers’ and then turn it on when the lights are on. You’ve got to do it every day. He’s a very talented guy that it’s important to. He’ll keep getting better. We needed him to push Brandon (Dawkins) more. Brandon’s a good player, but everybody needs competition.”

On whether that performance changed Rodriguez’s perception of Tate: “That single practice didn’t, even though it helped him from the standpoint that he needed to progress. You don’t want guys staying level; you want them to keep getting better. He got better in that practice.”

On his overall impressions of spring practice, which concluded March 31: “You’re always working on attitude and culture. It’s always been pretty good. But this spring was as good as we’ve had. I’m talking about enthusiasm, effort, the willingness to compete. The retention of some stuff that we carried over from the fall scheme-wise and new things that we wanted to put in. It was very productive. I would have liked to have had 10 more practices. I don’t think the players would’ve.”

On the defensive player who stood out most in spring: “Some of the veterans, you want them to still get better. You talk about a guy like Parker Zellers. He came here as unrecruited walk-on that nobody knew anything about. Undersized. And he made himself into a player. This spring he was even better. He’s a guy you’ve got to throw out of drills. That’s an example of that edge we’ve got to keep fostering. At times you can maybe lose that a little bit. We can’t afford to lose that hard edge here.”

On the depth of the offensive line after the departure of Keenan Walker: “When I look at it now – and you don’t know for sure how the newcomers are going to perform until they get here – that’s the only position where I’m not as comfortable that we have as much competition as we do other positions. That’s one position we’re addressing in recruiting. It’s probably not as deep as I’d like it to be.”