Arizona secured its quarterback of the future Wednesday. The Wildcats now have four scholarship QBs on their roster.
That doesn’t mean Jedd Fisch has finished his holiday shopping at a position he knows he has to get right.
Despite what currently seems like a glut of quarterbacks, it’s more likely than not that Arizona will add another one via the NCAA transfer portal in the coming days or weeks.
The identity of said quarterback is unknown. But the portal is like Amazon: It’s stocked with viable options (and mixed reviews).
Asked about the quarterback situation while introducing Arizona’s 2022 signing class Wednesday, Fisch said the following:
“Is there a candidate that is going to be able to come in and help us win immediately? If there is that, we would not pass that up at any spot.”
Fisch added that he feels “very good about our quarterback room right now” — but that he’s also concerned about its collective health.
Fisch said he does not expect Gunner Cruz, who opened the 2021 season as the starter, to be able to participate in spring practice because of a thumb injury suffered in October. Jordan McCloud, who looked promising in a pair of starts, is still recovering from ankle surgery. Will Plummer, who started the final six games and seven overall, played through a shoulder injury and other assorted bumps and bruises down the stretch.
Even if McCloud and Plummer are good to go for spring ball — plus incoming freshman Noah Fifita, who signed Wednesday and is enrolling in January — it might not be enough. Fisch saw last season how quickly the QB room can shrink. Over the last half of the campaign, Plummer was the only healthy scholarship quarterback available.
“I don’t want to go into a spring or any season again where I only have three guys or two guys or one guy,” Fisch said. “We’re gonna keep that open.”
But this is as much about quality as it is quantity. If Fisch and his staff believe they can upgrade the position, they likely will pursue that path.
As of Thursday, there were dozens of uncommitted quarterbacks in the portal with ratings of three stars or higher per 247Sports.com. Several have Arizona roots, including Jack Miller (Scottsdale Chaparral/Ohio State), Chubba Purdy (Gilbert Perry/Florida State) and Kedon Slovis (Scottsdale Desert Mountain/USC).
Given how the staff feels about Fifita — and the fact that McCloud and Plummer still have multiple years of eligibility — it makes sense to narrow the search to experienced quarterbacks with one, or at most two, years left.
Of the three listed above, only Slovis fits that bill. He has 27 career appearances, including three wins over Arizona. He has two years of eligibility remaining but likely will be looking for an opportunity where he can improve his stock ahead of the 2023 NFL draft.
Slovis’ résumé isn’t without flaws, however. His statistics have declined each season since a stellar freshman campaign in 2019 in which he completed 71.9% of his passes with 30 touchdowns and nine interceptions. This past season, Slovis had a 65% completion rate with an 11-8 TD-INT ratio.
It would be interesting to see how Slovis would fare in Fisch’s pro-style system, which is nothing like the Air Raid attack Slovis operated at USC. It also would behoove him — or any quarterback — to arrive before spring practice to get as much time as possible to master the playbook.
McCloud couldn’t get to Tucson from South Florida until June, and that put him behind Cruz and Plummer in the QB race. McCloud got his chance a few weeks into the season, showed promising signs, then suffered season-ending knee and ankle injuries against UCLA.
Plummer improved markedly over the course of the season and set career highs in completion percentage (73.7) and yards (346) in the season finale against Arizona State. However, like McCloud and Cruz, Plummer finished the season with more interceptions than touchdowns.
Portal waiver explained
In addition to 20 scholarship high school signees, Arizona added one player from the transfer portal Wednesday: former UCLA defensive back DJ Warnell.
Fisch said the Wildcats could add between seven and 10 transfers over the course of the offseason. Teams can go over the annual cap of 25 “initials” this year via an NCAA waiver that allows programs to replace up to seven players who depart via the portal. Arizona already has reached that threshold.
Matt Doherty, the Wildcats’ director of player personnel, explained the reasoning behind the waiver.
“This blanket waiver was enacted by the NCAA to mitigate some of the chunks being bitten out of rosters across college football with the ease with which people can transfer from one program to the next now,” Doherty said. “It was becoming increasingly apparent that pretty much no program in America was going to operate at 85 scholarships — and not just below 85, like pretty significantly below 85. Once you drift into a certain number underneath that cap, you start to worry about the safety and health of your players.
“What the NCAA has done at least for this offseason — and hopefully it becomes a more permanent measure — is allow you to basically replace one for one. If a player walks out the door, you can bring one in right off the street, for lack of a better term, to replace that player and keep your numbers at a healthy place.”
Players have to have entered the portal by the end of the semester while remaining enrolled in classes to meet the criteria for the one-for-one replacement. Fisch said the day after the season finale that Arizona could add 30 total scholarship players this cycle.
T-Mac watch
Fisch and his staff continued to hold out hope Thursday that they could land another one of Fifita’s teammates from Servite High School in Anaheim, California.
Receiver Tetairoa McMillan — a five-star prospect per Rivals.com — did not sign Wednesday. He has been committed to Oregon since mid-August but has had second thoughts since Mario Cristobal left for Miami.
McMillan said Wednesday that he would sign by the end of this week — a potentially favorable development for Arizona, which is still recruiting him after signing two other Servite players for 2022: tight end Keyan Burnett and linebacker Jacob Manu.
Fifita certainly would like to see his top receiver accompany him to Tucson. The two had this exchange on Twitter earlier this week:
McMillan: “You’re so inspirational man.”
Fifita: “Love you my bro! Best player in America #4MoreYears?”
