Since Rich Rodriguez’s first season at Arizona, during USC game week he’s had his team participate in the same exercise.
He sits the team down, and he asks a question.
Who here was offered a scholarship by USC?
It’s always scattershot, a player here, a player there. The point being: Most of Arizona’s roster was overlooked by USC in the recruiting process. Motivation for Saturday’s 12:30 p.m. game is, seemingly, easier than usual.
Consider: Each of the last nine UA-USC games have been decided by eight points or fewer, including last season’s 38-30 Arizona loss at The Coliseum in Los Angeles.
“A lot of our guys, or probably 99 percent if not 100, weren’t recruited by USC,” Rodriguez said. “So they play to try and prove themselves.”
Currently, Arizona has 29 scholarship players from California, and 24 of them are from Southern California.
Of that group, only one player can raise his hand this week — quarterback Khalil Tate, who hails from USC pipeline Junipero Serra High in Gardena, California.
Fittingly, there’s a chance Tate, a true freshman, will make his first career start against the Trojans. That, of course, is pending the status of Brandon Dawkins (concussion) who is listed as questionable on the weekly injury report.
“This game means a whole lot to me,” Tate said.
Tate was thrust into action two weeks ago close to home, as Arizona was forced to burn Tate’s planned redshirt for this season against UCLA after Dawkins was injured. With Anu Solomon out since Arizona’s first game, the Wildcats had no choice. All things considered — particularly, that he’s just 17 years old — Tate has performed well.
Against the Bruins, Tate completed 5 of 9 passes for 72 yards and two touchdowns, adding 79 rushing yards on 15 attempts.
Last week, Tate was inserted into the lineup again for a concussed Dawkins, and completed 5 of 8 passes for 105 yards, one touchdown and one interception with 33 rushing yards on 10 carries.
“They’re doing a good job with him,” said USC coach Clay Helton. “He’s beyond electric and a very, very strong runner. It’s like having a running back there at quarterback. He can fight through tackles, he usually makes the first guy miss, he’s a dangerous weapon.”
Tate could have been a Trojan, and there were moments late in the recruiting process where rumors swirled that he might even flip from the Wildcats to USC. But that never happened, and it was largely because of this — a lot of high-level programs wanted Tate, but only a few wanted him as a quarterback.
Arizona saw that from the get-go and recruited accordingly.
When Steve Sarkisian was still USC’s head coach, the Trojans weren’t recruiting him as a quarterback. By the time Helton replaced Sarkisian, the approach changed, but it was too late.
“He was a guy everybody was looking at as ‘hey, you can take him as a quarterback knowing that he can play another position in a heartbeat’,” Helton said.
The Wildcats saw him as a quarterback. Period.
“That’s why we recruited him,” said Rod Smith, Arizona’s quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator. “I knew from Day One that this kid’s a quarterback.”
Tate has his own reasons for motivation against USC — not recruiting him at quarterback, the fact that nine USC players also hail from Serra — but he had an offer from the Trojans. It’s why he was one of the few Wildcats raising his hand this week.
All of the others who did don’t even hail from Southern California: cornerback DaVonte’ Neal, tight end Trevor Wood and offensive lineman Keenan Walker are from Scottsdale; offensive lineman Freddie Tagaloa and linebacker Michael Barton, both California transfers, come from the Bay Area.
“We have a lot of guys from Los Angeles, I mean I can’t think of a kid from L.A. who didn’t want to go to USC,” said Barton, expected to start at middle linebacker in place of Cody Ippolito, out for the season with a knee injury. “I think everybody has a kind of chip on their shoulder when we play them.”
UA corner Dane Cruikshank grew up a die-hard USC fan in Chino Hills, California, often attending games with his grandfather. He still smiles thinking about how, when he was 10 years old, he met Reggie Bush, his hero.
Out of high school, Cruikshank didn’t qualify academically, so USC was never an option. He played in junior college for two years before coming to Arizona. He didn’t personally feel overlooked by the Trojans, but when Rodriguez told the players offered by USC to raise their hands, Cruikshank took notice.
“As a team, I see it. (Rodriguez) asked us, and a lot of people didn’t raise our hands,” Cruikshank said. “We took it as disrespectful.”
Helton expects that. There are only so many scholarship slots, and with a bulk of top Southern California talent staying in the Pac-12, on any given Saturday, he’s likely going to face a highly-motivated bunch, chips on shoulders. It comes with the territory of being USC.
Helton is in his seventh year as a USC coach, and he vividly remembers something he heard back in year two.
“There was a study done on the average of how many players are signed from Fresno, California, to basically Southern California, Los Angeles area. And there’s 123 Pac-12 players signed here and you can only sign 25 per school. So you look at that and know that those guys that you don’t sign, you’re going to be playing against.
“Coach Rodriguez has done a fabulous job in Southern California recruiting, he’s brought in good players. They’re (Arizona) always hard to go against. Not only are they well-coached and good players, but they’ve got a chip on their shoulder, too.”
