No. 35: Brandon Dawkins

The details: Dawkins is a dual-threat quarterback from Oxnard, California. For the second straight season, Dawkins will be in a battle to be Arizona’s starting quarterback with sophomore Khalil Tate, along with incoming freshmen Donavan Tate, K’Hari Lane and Rhett Rodriguez, though Dawkins is the presumptive favorite this time around after initially losing out to Anu Solomon last year.

UA coach Rich Rodriguez even said in the spring of Dawkins: “Khalil’s gotta beat him out.” Solomon has since transferred to Baylor. Dawkins came to Arizona as part of its 2014 recruiting class a highly-regarded recruit, with offers from Notre Dame, Utah and NC State.

The numbers: Dawkins redshirted his freshman season then backed up Solomon and Jerrard Randall as a redshirt sophomore. He received his first significant playing time against Arizona State that season and showed flashes of his potential, throwing for 301 yards and two touchdowns and rushing for 78 yards.

Last season, Dawkins battled injuries but played in 10 games with nine starts and threw for 1,348 yards, eight touchdowns and six interceptions. He was more effective rushing the ball, amassing a team-best 944 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns.

The value: Dawkins still has to beat out Tate for the starting job — and keep the job after that — but of course the quarterback is the most pivotal position on the field for any football team, and if UA is going to bounce back from a troubled 3-9 campaign, it will start with Dawkins.

Nobody’s questioned Dawkins’ rushing and athletic ability, but he’s lacked consistency in the passing game and was still adjusting to Arizona’s offense last season. Dawkins says he now feels more comfortable running the show.

“As time’s gone in, even just in spring ball from my first to my second to my third, it’s like leaps and bounds of more experience and being more comfortable and understanding everything a lot more. It’s just like night and day,” Dawkins said. “I’ll watch film from this last spring and compare it to my first spring when I first got here and it’s like oh, it’s night and day.”

Why Dawkins? When Dawkins has been at his best, with the no-huddle offense flowing and he’s limiting turnovers, the Wildcats offense tends to fire on all cylinders. With one near-full season as a starter under his belt, if he can beat out Tate, Dawkins is poised to make improvements, especially behind an experienced offensive line and a talented stable of running backs to hand off to.

At the least, Dawkins should be at the head of one of the Pac-12’s best rushing attacks.

“The more comfortable you are in this offense — and as a quarterback the more you understand — the more you can execute,” Dawkins said.

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Proof he’s good: The flashes of Dawkins’ ability have come in spurts, first in that ASU game in 2015 when he came in relief of an injured Solomon. Last season, Dawkins particularly thrived against Hawaii, completing 16 of 21 passes for 235 yards and a touchdown, adding 118 rushing yards and three touchdowns. A week later, Dawkins nearly lead the UA to an upset of Washington, an eventual College Football Playoff team, rushing for 176 yards and two touchdowns on 13 carries.

Finally, in his second career appearance against ASU, Dawkins didn’t throw a pass in the second half of a dominant UA victory, rushing for 183 yards and two touchdowns.

What Dawkins can accomplish: The Pac-12 is always stacked at the quarterback position, but perhaps more than usual this season. There is a Heisman favorite (USC’s Sam Darnold) and at least two other possible Heisman contenders (UCLA’s Josh Rosen and Washington State’s Luke Falk).

It would take a truly remarkable leap of production — and team success — for Dawkins to have any sort of shot at conference honors, making that the longest of long shots. But in terms of statistics, if Dawkins can stay healthy he’s a good bet to lead conference quarterbacks in rushing yards and be among the Pac-12 leaders in general in that category.

Coachspeak: “Brandon knows what we’re doing now … He’s got to understand, I can’t take off just because I feel pressure; I’ve got to learn to work and move in the pocket and make throws at times as well.

“When you’re a young quarterback, you tend to go with your first, natural instinct. That’s to take off because he’s so good at that.” — UA quarterbacks coach Rod Smith

He said it: “I’m really excited. We say it every year, we’re always overlooked. Now we gave them a reason to overlook us after the season we had. That doesn’t change much for me. I know what our team is capable of and what we can do. Especially if we keep guys healthy. I still believe there’s no team in the Pac-12 that’s going to come in and get an easy win off us.

“We’re a challenge for every team in the Pac-12 if we have everybody healthy and everybody on the same page. We don’t have to bring slot receivers and put them at running back, bring tight ends and put them at quarterback.

“I don’t think there’s too many teams that we couldn’t play with when we’re all healthy.” — Dawkins

How Dawkins performed: On the first drive against Colorado in October, Dawkins tucked the ball, scrambled out of bounds and took a late hit from a CU defender. Dawkins would miss the rest of the game with an injury. From that moment, the Khalil Tate era officially started at UA. Dawkins is now a graduate transfer at Indiana with hopes of starting in the Big 10.