Living in the desert during the winter months certainly has its perks.
Just ask new Arizona Wildcats quarterback Jayden de Laura.
“I love it. Yeah, it’s cold, but not seeing snow on the ground is like ‘Ahhh,’" de Laura said.
For the last two years, the 6-foot, 190-pound de Laura spent his football-playing career at Washington State, where he passed for 3,688 yards, 28 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. He was named the Pac-12 Offensive Freshman of the Year in 2021.
Adapting from the frigid conditions of the Palouse to year-round sunshine of Tucson isn’t the only adjustment de Laura will make during his time at Arizona. Just like the hundreds — if not, thousands — of football players who’ve entered the NCAA transfer portal over the last three months, de Laura, a Honolulu native, was in search of a “fresh start.”
Once head coach — and run-and-shoot offense enthusiast — Nick Rolovich was fired and replaced by Jake Dickert, the Cougars added FCS star quarterback Cameron Ward. No love lost with de Laura, who said, “They went a way they felt was good for them and I respect it, but at the end of the day I have to make a decision that’s best for me.”
“Personally for me, it was just looking for a new beginning and somewhere that I feel comfortable. Also, easy access for my family, because it was kind of hard and expensive for them to get up to Washington,” he said.
Added de Laura: “I remember waking up in the morning and I didn’t really tell anybody. I entered the portal and I called my dad. I told him I entered the portal and he was like, ‘What?!’ He was in the shower, so he got out of the shower and came down and we had a conversation about it.”
De Laura said “a couple schools” contacted him, but the Wildcats were the most persistent in recruiting the quarterback. “Maybe five or 10 minutes” after de Laura submitted his name into the portal, Arizona defensive coordinator Johnny Nansen phoned him followed by head coach Jedd Fisch and quarterbacks coach Jimmie Dougherty.
Then de Laura trekked to Tucson with his parents for an official visit and took a tour of campus and the UA football facilities. The major selling point was the “family atmosphere” Fisch and Arizona’s new staff have instilled.
Jayden de Laura put up big numbers at Washington State, but he no longer felt Pullman was the right place for him.
“A lot of schools talk about it but you don’t really feel it from them. Here, I felt it. My mom, my dad, they came with me and they could feel it, too,” de Laura said.
De Laura knew he wanted to be a Wildcat right then and there.
If there’s anyone who knew about de Laura’s decision before the Arizona coaches, it’s incoming freshman offensive lineman Jonah Savaiinaea, who was the quarterback’s teammate for one season at St. Louis High School in Hawaii. De Laura hails from the St. Louis quarterback fraternity that produced Tua Tagovailoa, Marcus Mariota and new Hawaii head coach Timmy Chang. In 2019, de Laura and Savaiinaea won a state championship in their lone season together.
Savaiinaea is included in the influx of 2022 recruits joining the Wildcats in the spring, so he was in Tucson when de Laura was on his visit to the UA. Nearly 3,000 miles away from home, de Laura — over dinner — informed his old pal about becoming teammates again.
“‘Hey, I’m going to be playing with you again,’” de Laura told Savaiinaea.
Savaiinaea told the Star “it feels great reuniting again” with de Laura.
“He can do it all,” Savaiinaea said. “I knew he was special, because my freshman year he was dominating. Being able to play with him was great. … He’s best at every phase of being a quarterback.”
In the short time that de Laura has been in Tucson, he’s held personal pass-catching sessions with a few wide receivers and tight ends. One of his top takeaways from working with Ma’jon Wright — who was a freshman at the UA in 2020, then transferred to Middle Tennessee State before returning to Arizona in ’21 — was his “freakishly huge hands.”
“I’ll throw him the ball, he’s catching it and his hands cover the entire ball. … There’s some other receivers we got and they’re just speed, so I’m excited to see what we got this spring once we start practice,” de Laura said.
Wright will be a part of a wide receiver corps that includes All-American Tetairoa McMillan, UTEP transfer Jacob Cowing, Dorian Singer, Anthony Simpson, Jamarye Joiner, Kevin Green, AJ Jones and Jalen Johnson.
“It makes my job easier. Now it’s my job to get the ball into their hands and allow them to do their thing,” de Laura said.
Two elements to Arizona’s offense de Laura said will be the most challenging accommodation: taking snaps under center in a pro-style offense, which he never did at Washington State, and playing in a system that incorporates tight ends.
“I don’t recall the last time (Washington State) had a tight end on the roster,” de Laura said.
Then-WSU quarterback Jayden de Laura throws a pass while pressured by Portland State in a game last year.
De Laura said the last time he completed a pass to a tight end was “probably like Pop Warner.” However, he’s longing to work with the tight end group that includes four-star freshman Keyan Burnett and returner Alex Lines, especially for the red zone; Arizona ranked 118th in FBS — last in the Pac-12 — in red-zone offense.
“When we’re in the red zone, I could just throw it to a big target, especially the tight ends that we got here, they can catch. So, I’m excited for that,” de Laura said.
There’s still an elephant in the room — the UA’s quarterback room that is. The Wildcats still have last year’s trio of Jordan McCloud, Will Plummer and Gunner Cruz on roster for 2022, while adding Southern California standout Noah Fifita.
McCloud (leg) and Cruz (thumb), who transferred from Washington State to Arizona when de Laura became the starter at WSU, are still rehabilitating season-ending injuries, but are expected to participate in spring ball that’s set to begin in March.
The message of adding de Laura to boost competition in the quarterback room was well-received by the returners.
“They all understood and were appreciative of our honesty. We’ve never not told our quarterbacks the truth. We’ve never not told our player on the team the truth,” Fisch said. “Just like we brought in another (defensive tackle), another (defensive end), another linebacker, another receiver, the same thing. We’re bringing in another quarterback and if he’s the best one, he’ll play.
“They were a part of the recruitment (of de Laura), they were part of helping him out. They understand that the best thing for Arizona football is to get better at every single position.
“The cream rises to the top and competition makes everyone better, so they knew that was the case, and we never said we weren’t going to do that. When an opportunity arose like a Jayden de Laura, we were all very excited about him joining our team.”
De Laura is expecting a “healthy competition” among the quarterbacks during spring ball. Fisch will begin meeting with de Laura and Fifita eight hours every week in February to educate them on Arizona’s offensive system and the verbiage and nuances tied into it.
Once spring ball comes around, it’s go-time. The competition will ramp up to see who is the starter for the season opener against San Diego State.
“They’re all available and will go out there and pitch it around and we’ll see who does best and who’s ready to go, but I expect a really good competition but I don’t expect a long, drawn out — every day, us talking about who is going to be the quarterback,” Fisch said.
“We saw how that worked.”
