The Arizona-USC matchup features two of the Pac-12’s premier escape artists.
The Wildcats’ Jayden de Laura and the Trojans’ Caleb Williams both excel at eluding pressure — and then turning what look like broken plays into positive ones.
De Laura ranks fifth in the Pac-12 at sack avoidance, according to Pro Football Focus’ P2S% stat (percentage of pressures turned into sacks). De Laura has been sacked 14.1% of the time when pressured. Williams ranks sixth at 16.7%.
Only two conference quarterbacks have been pressured more than de Laura and Williams: Washington State’s Cameron Ward and Cal’s Jack Plummer.
“It’s very good,” UA coach Jedd Fisch said of de Laura’s escapability. “He’s not getting sacked very often. He’s making plays with his feet. He’s running around. He’s very hard to tackle. He’s very slithery back there. I love that. You need that nowadays.
“The best athletes, the big athletes, are on defense. Those guys are the pass rushers. You’ve got to deal with some great athletes that are 250, 260, 270 pounds coming at you.”
Arizona quarterback Jayden de Laura ranks fifth in the Pac-12 at sack avoidance.
Williams learned at an early age to avoid the big people chasing him. Williams often would play with older kids, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times. The best way to overcome the size disparity, he discovered, was to flee.
Williams has grown into a 6-1, 215-pound dual-threat quarterback who has a 19-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio and is USC’s second-leading rusher with 235 net yards.
“It’s black magic,” teammate Travis Dye said of Williams in that same L.A. Times piece. “He looks like he’s about to be sacked, and all of a sudden he Houdinis out of it and we have a 20-yard gain.”
Dye easily could have been describing de Laura’s performance against Washington on Oct. 15. He was sacked a season-high four times. But PFF credited the Huskies with 25 pressures. The sack total easily could have been higher.
“There were challenges today with de Laura buying time,” UW coach Kalen DeBoer said after the game. “It is just what he does. ... We knew that we would have our hands full.”
Williams and de Laura regularly are able to make something out of nothing. They rank first and second in the Pac-12 in another statistic that PFF measures: time to throw (TTT).
That stat — calculated as the average time to throw from snap to release on all dropbacks — is somewhat scheme-dependent. Having a higher TTT can be viewed as a negative — a sign that a quarterback is holding the ball too long. But, as mentioned, Williams and de Laura also rank among the league’s better QBs at avoiding sacks. By contrast, Stanford’s Tanner McKee has the lowest TTT in the conference — and the highest P2S%.
“We throw it about 41 times a game,” Fisch said. “So the amount of times we drop back, we need a guy like Jayden to be able to make some plays with his feet. He does that.”
More PT for Prysock
Freshman cornerback Ephesians Prysock is among the players who will see increased playing time down the stretch, Fisch said.
Prysock, a one-time USC commit, mostly has played special teams this season. He has played five defensive snaps, per PFF.
Prysock, who enrolled in spring, could share snaps with Treydan Stukes, who has struggled at times since returning from a preseason knee injury. Arizona also could use more three-cornerback looks against USC, which often deploys three wide receivers.
Fisch and his staff examined various personnel scenarios on both sides of the ball during the bye.
“As we’re looking at what we have currently, we also have to have roster management for the future, what our numbers are going to look like, who we have coming back and all those type things,” Fisch said. “And then we looked at: What gives us the best chance currently? Which players do we feel we need to get some game reps on to get a good feel for? There’s a couple of guys here or there.
“I’ve thought that Prysock has practiced extremely well, as has (fellow freshman cornerback) Tacario Davis. Right now Ephesians has done a good job to be able to get himself in the rotation and play some more snaps.”
‘Bonus Sunday’
After practicing Monday through Thursday last week — including “a lot of good on good,” Fisch said — the Wildcats had Friday and Saturday off. They got a jumpstart on USC with a fully padded practice Sunday.
“I would use the term ‘Bonus Sunday,’ ” Fisch said. “We were able to use it like a Tuesday. We were able to get a lift in. We were in full pads. Where a normal Sunday, if we were playing a game on a Saturday, we would be in just shorts and helmets. We were able to hit and have a good two-hour, doozy of a practice.”
Fisch and his staff advised the players to enjoy their time off last Friday and Saturday — but not too much. Unless they were rehabbing injuries, they weren’t required to be in the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility.
“Rest. Don’t ... come back more tired,” Fisch said. “Use it as an opportunity to recharge. Watch film on your own. Use it as an advantage. Use it as an opportunity to get ahead.
“We send them home with whatever they need from the training room to get their body right. Use that time. The rest of the year, the end of the year, is your time to stay out late and do all that other stuff.”
Extra points
The kickoff time for Arizona’s game at Utah on Nov. 5 is subject to a six-day selection and will be announced no later than Sunday. The possible windows are 12:30 p.m. (ABC or ESPN), 4:30 p.m. (Pac-12 Networks) or 7:30 p.m. (FS1).
Rob Gronkowski will serve as Arizona’s honorary captain Saturday. He’s also the guest speaker at the Arizona Bowl luncheon Thursday. Fisch is hopeful that Gronkowski will be able to attend a practice and address the team. “That’ll be great for our players,” Fisch said.
Fisch deemed last week’s recruiting efforts a success. “I feel very good about where we’re at there,” he said. Every coach went on the road, attending about 28 games in four states. Arizona currently has 18 commits for 2023. Its class is ranked 45th nationally, per 247Sports.com.
Arizona (3-4, 1-3 Pac-12) opened as a 15-point underdog against No. 10 USC (6-1, 4-1). The line had moved to 15.5 as of Monday afternoon.
