Arizona will use Pac-12 resources to stir some unprecedented interest in its spring football game: Rather than be played on a (too) warm afternoon at Arizona Stadium, it will now be played at 6 on a Friday night, April 10. The Pac-12 Networks will televise it.
Even though freshman quarterbackΒ Anu SolomonΒ passed for 3,793 yards and 28 touchdowns this season β even though he took more than 1,100 snaps β spring ball at Arizona will chiefly be a chance for redshirt freshman quarterbackΒ Brandon DawkinsΒ to audition for the starting QB job.
βMy job isnβt set,β Solomon told me in the UAβs locker room Wednesday night at the Fiesta Bowl. βIβve got to compete every day withΒ JerrardΒ RandallΒ and Brandon Dawkins. They want to be No. 1, theyβre trying to take the job. I canβt have the mentality that Iβm all set.β
Staying at the elite level in the Pac-12 South demands more from its quarterbacks than Arizona got in the conference championship game and at the Fiesta Bowl, a pair of games in which the Wildcats were a dismal 37-for-76 passing (48.7 percent) with three interceptions.
Worse, the UA defense yielded 1,098 yards and 89 points in those games.
UCLA returns 18 of 22 starters, USC started 18 non-seniors in the Holiday Bowl, and Arizona State has 15 starters scheduled to return.
The Pac-12 wonβt be getting any easier.
