The Star’s Michael Lev presents five storylines of interest as the Arizona Wildcats open the 2021 season Saturday night against BYU in Las Vegas. Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m. The game will air on ESPN.
Four years later, Jedd Fisch gets shot to run program again
Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder, left, and UCLA head coach Jedd Fisch talk before an NCAA college football bowl game, Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2017, in Phoenix.
Arizona is Jedd Fisch’s first full-time head-coaching job. It’s an opportunity he worked toward for more than 20 years.
But when Fisch sets foot on the field at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas for the Wildcats’ opener against BYU on Saturday night, it won’t be the first time he will have served as a head coach.
Fisch was the interim coach for UCLA at the end of the 2017 season. He posted a 1-1 record.
Fisch spent most of that year as the Bruins’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach under Jim Mora. But on Sunday, Nov. 19 — one day after UCLA lost to USC and oh, by the way, Mora’s 56th birthday — he was fired.
Mora was part of the 2012 Pac-12 coaching class that also included Rich Rodriguez at Arizona and Todd Graham at Arizona State. The loss to USC dropped UCLA’s record to 5-6. The Bruins had gone 4-8 the previous season.
With one regular-season game left, and a possible bowl berth, UCLA turned to Fisch. Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times wrote at the time that Fisch’s "innovative play calling has made him a rising star in the college ranks."
Fisch had spent the previous two seasons at Michigan. At UCLA, he helped Josh Rosen throw for 3,756 yards and 26 touchdowns en route to being a first-round draft pick.
Fisch had only five days to prepare UCLA for its regular-season finale, a Friday-night game against Cal at the Rose Bowl. The Bruins led 27-17 early in the fourth quarter despite Rosen getting hurt and sitting out the second half. The Golden Bears answered with 10 consecutive points. UCLA won the game on J.J. Molson’s 37-yard field goal with four seconds remaining.
"We did it for the seniors, for Coach Mora, for Coach Fisch and for Coach Mora's legacy," Molson said after the game. "It's definitely different without Coach Mora. ... There's kind of a void, but Coach Fisch did a great job of telling us to carry on his legacy. This week was a bit weird, but we just practiced every day and got the job done."
The next day, UCLA hired Chip Kelly. Fisch was interested in the job, but UCLA decided it couldn’t pass up the opportunity to hire a coach of Kelly’s pedigree.
The Bruins still had a game to play — the Cactus Bowl against Kansas State at Chase Field in Phoenix. It was decided that Fisch would remain the coach for the bowl game.
Rosen was unable to play, and the Bruins missed a week of practice because of wildfires. Devon Modster, a onetime UA commit, started and passed for 295 yards and two touchdowns. But UCLA couldn’t stop KSU’s running attack. Kansas State rushed for 344 yards in a 35-17 triumph.
Kelly didn’t retain Fisch, who spent the next three seasons in the NFL with the Rams and Patriots. Kelly remains the coach at UCLA, which will be Arizona’s opponent in the Wildcats’ Pac-12 home opener on Oct. 9.
Uncertainty at QB has been a UA trademark since Wildcats won Pac-12 South in 2014
Arizona quarterback Jordan McCloud and fellow quarterbacks run through drills during Tuesday’s practice on campus.
Arizona fans know all too well what it’s like to have uncertainty at the quarterback position. In that sense, Jedd Fisch’s decision to play two QBs in the opener against BYU was almost predictable.
Fisch announced that Gunner Cruz, an Arizona native and transfer from Washington State, will start against the Cougars. But Will Plummer, another Arizonan, also is expected to play. The battle between them for the starting job was too close to call.
Since the 2014 campaign — when Anu Solomon started all 14 games and led Arizona to its lone Pac-12 South championship — the Wildcats haven’t made it through a season with one quarterback making every start. Most of the time, the changes were made because of injuries. Here’s the breakdown of the past six seasons:
2015: Solomon 11 starts, Jerrard Randall 2
2016: Brandon Dawkins 9, Solomon 2, Khalil Tate 1
2017: Tate 8, Dawkins 5
2018: Tate 11, Rhett Rodriguez 1
2019: Tate 9, Grant Gunnell 3
2020: Gunnell 4, Plummer 1
Gunnell transferred after last season, landing at Memphis. He’s listed as a co-starter with Seth Henigan for the Tigers’ opener against Nicholls State.
Gunnell and Tate shared time over the latter portion of the ’19 season, when Tate lost his full-time job because of ineffective play. The platoon system never really worked, as Arizona lost its final seven games (including the finale against Arizona State, in which Tate took every snap).
Fisch doesn’t envision the current two-quarterback setup to last the entire season. It’s a difficult arrangement to pull off. The Wildcats of the late 1990s remain an exception.
Keith Smith and Ortege Jenkins shared the job for the better part of three seasons, including the magical 1998 campaign, when Arizona posted a program-best 12-1 record.
“I felt they were both starters,” former UA coach Dick Tomey told the Star in 2018. “They both deserved to play. They both respected each other. And that was ratified during the course of the season.”
Only a sophomore? Such is the case for Jake Oldroyd, four other Cougars who beat Cats in ’16
BYU place kicker Jake Oldroyd (39) celebrates after kicking the game winning field goal during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Arizona, Saturday, Sept. 3, 2016, in Phoenix. BYU defeated Arizona 18-16.
It isn’t uncommon for BYU players’ careers to stretch across six or seven seasons because many of them go on two-year missions after enrolling. So the fact that half a dozen current Cougars were on the roster when BYU faced Arizona in 2016 isn’t that strange.
What is weird is that five of them are classified as sophomores.
How can that be? Let’s look at the case of kicker Jake Oldroyd.
Oldroyd made his college debut in the ’16 opener. His first career kick was a game-winner against the Wildcats.
Oldroyd ended up redshirting that year. He then went on a two-year mission. When he returned, in 2019, he was considered a redshirt freshman. Then came the 2020 season. BYU played 12 games, but the NCAA decided the season wouldn’t count against anyone’s eligibility because of the pandemic. So Oldroyd remains a redshirt sophomore.
One of Oldroyd’s teammates, senior safety Jared Kapisi, was on the roster in 2014. He went on his mission in 2015 and ’16. He’s a “super senior” this year thanks to the NCAA’s ruling.
Two UA super seniors were members of the ’16 team that lost 18-16 to BYU in the opener in Glendale: center Josh McCauley and receiver Thomas Reid III. Both redshirted that season.
BYU’s top offensive performers in the 2016 matchup were quarterback Taysom Hill and running back Jamaal Williams. Both are about to start their fifth seasons in the NFL.
BYU beat writer on Cougars’ QB, concerns and possible outcomes vs. Arizona
Norma Gonzalez
The BYU football beat has a Tucson connection.
Norma Gonzalez, who covers the Cougars for The Salt Lake Tribune, worked for the Star from 2017-19. She was kind enough to answer three questions about BYU heading into the opener against Arizona.
Jaren Hall got the starting nod at quarterback. What should we expect to see from him behind center?
A: “Hall is a dual-threat quarterback. Expect to see him make stellar passes (I got to see a few in fall camp) and also run the ball. I'd venture to say that he could rush for more than 100 yards if the opportunity presents itself.”
BYU lost a ton of production from last year. What are the biggest areas of concern entering the season?
A: “I'd say youth could be a concern, but really, BYU has seemingly found a way to fill every position that was left open from last season. That being said, I'm most interested to see how both the offensive and defensive lines do, because they lost a good amount of talent there and they're important roles.”
What are the best- and worst-case scenarios for the Cougars on Saturday night?
A: “Coming off a historic season. and just days after Kalani Sitake's contract extension, the worst-case scenario would be to walk out of Allegiant Stadium with a loss. There are a lot of expectations on the Cougars to not only perform but perform at their best. The best-case scenario would be to not show a lot of drop-off in production from last year while getting the 'W.'”
UA linemen Edgar Burrola, JT Hand overcame odds to make two-deep
Edgar Burrola, left, and JT Hand
In January, it would have been hard to envision offensive linemen Edgar Burrola and JT Hand cracking Arizona’s two-deep.
Burrola, who had started six games in 2019, was suspended for the ’20 season because of a dispute over the program’s COVID-19 protocols. The new coaching staff gave him a second chance, but Burrola had to rediscover his form and rebuild his body after being away from football. The 6-foot-7-inch Las Vegas native was listed at 295 pounds in spring. He’s currently 312.
“He's another guy, with Coach (Tyler) Owens in the weight room, who has changed his body,” UA offensive line coach Brennan Carroll said of Burrola, who’s listed as the second-team right tackle. “When he sat out, he didn't have the same weight-room situation as everyone else, so he fell off a little bit. But he's done a great job on his comeback.”
Hand enrolled in January after graduating early from Mission Viejo High School in Southern California. Mission Viejo didn’t play in the fall because of the pandemic, so Hand missed his senior season.
But arriving early gave the son of former UA lineman Bryan Hand a head start. JT worked his way into the second-string spot at center.
“It's very difficult,” Carroll said. “I'm proud of the way he's developed, proud of the way he's worked, proud of the gains he's made in the weight room. He’s been fantastic so far.”
