Josh McCauley didn’t have to play against Arizona State last season. Then again, he couldn’t possibly sit out.
The Arizona Wildcats’ veteran center — once dubbed “the ironman” by UA offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone — suffered a sprained MCL in his right knee on Nov. 2 against Oregon State. He missed the following two games against Oregon and Utah — the first he had missed since becoming Arizona’s starter at the outset of the 2018 season.
The Wildcats were out of bowl contention by the time they faced the Sun Devils in the Nov. 30 season finale. McCauley wasn’t close to 100%. If he sat out again, no one would have blamed him. McCauley had other ideas.
“That’s the one game a year you don’t want to miss,” McCauley said this week. “That’s ASU. That’s the big one.”
Not only did McCauley play, he played the entire game. Did he think he’d be able to do that?
“Honestly, no,” McCauley said. “But there were only a couple times I went down. It was tough to get back up. But that’s kind of what football is.”
That paragraph should tell you everything you need to know about McCauley’s makeup. In what might qualify as the understatement of the year, Mazzone said simply of the fifth-year senior: “He’s tough.”
McCauley said he spent “four or five hours a day” in the training room trying to get ready to play. He couldn’t stomach the alternative. Asked what his toughest game of the season was, McCauley said: “Oregon and Utah – the two that I didn’t play.”
Less than a month after getting hurt – on a fluky play that also saw fellow lineman Bryson Cain go down – McCauley represented his school in the Territorial Cup. The injury was such that he couldn’t make it worse by playing. It was simply a matter of pain tolerance.
“No one told me I couldn’t play,” said McCauley, who’s fully healthy now. “It was kind of left up to me, and I felt comfortable enough going out there and playing to a high enough level that I’m not hurting the team.”
Fellow lineman Cody Creason, battling an ankle injury that kept him out of the previous five games, also played every snap. Creason, a redshirt senior last year, knew it would be his final college game.
Cain had one more year of eligibility but elected to step away from football. Other than those two, though, Arizona’s offensive line brings everyone back, including position coach Kyle DeVan.
As McCauley noted, this is the first time he has had the same coach two springs in a row. College football players across the country have become accustomed — numbed, even — to the seemingly endless turnover within coaching staffs. McCauley and his fellow offensive lineman deal with it like they do most things: by putting their heads down and doing their jobs.
“It’s something that’s there. You don’t really talk about it,” McCauley said. “We’re going to come to work every day, and we’re going to do our thing. That’s kind of the mentality of what an O-lineman is.”
Means to (tight) ends?
UA fans are understandably skeptical when it comes to tight end usage. Aside from Bryce Wolma’s 28-catch season in 2017, tight ends haven’t played a significant role in the passing game for years, dating to the Rich Rodriguez era.
Could that change in 2020? Maybe. Mazzone said the offensive staff has “made a few adjustments … for the type of player we’ve got at quarterback now.” Sophomore Grant Gunnell is the favorite to start. He’s more liable to use the middle of the field than predecessor Khalil Tate. That could lead to more targets for tight ends.
Mazzone said he had been reluctant to implement packages for tight ends because Arizona didn’t have great depth at the position. That changed when the Wildcats signed junior-college prospect Stacey Marshall, one of the most impressive-looking newcomers in spring camp.
Wolma also returns for his senior season, with 20 starts on his résumé. He caught only five passes each of the past two seasons in Mazzone’s offense.
“It gives us a lot more flexibility to build some packages around the tight end,” Mazzone said. “So I’m really excited about it.”
Marshall has generated some early buzz. He’s listed at 6-5, 248, and moves well. He showed a willingness and aptitude for blocking at Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College but, like Wolma, caught only five passes last season.
“When you put the film on, what jumped out was his effort, how hard he played,” Mazzone said. “And then when he walks in the room, you go, ‘OK, well, this looks good, too.’
“He’s got really good ball skills. (But) he’s kind of going all over the place and learning how to drop his weight and all those type of things. He’s probably never had to do that before in his career, because he’s always been just an attached tight end. So I think his learning curve could be kind of exponential.”
Extra points
• Former Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez attended practice Thursday. Rodriguez’s son, Rhett Rodriguez, is a fourth-year quarterback on the team. Rich Rodriguez coached the Wildcats from 2012-17.
• The Wildcats wore full pads and worked as a team on the Dick Tomey Practice Fields for the first time after primarily practicing indoors Monday and Tuesday.
• Several UA football players are participating in the Global Africana Studies Experience in Paris over spring break and were absent Thursday. They included receivers Tre Adams and Zach Williams, defensive lineman Mykee Irving, outside linebacker Issaiah Johnson and cornerback Lorenzo Burns.
• The first-team offensive line during drills featured, from left to right, Jordan Morgan, Donovan Laie, Josh McCauley, Robert Congel and Paiton Fears.
• The following players worked on punt returns: Brian Casteel, Brenden Schooler, Bam Smith and Jaden Mitchell.
• Mazzone on redshirt-sophomore quarterback Kevin Doyle, who fell behind last summer because of a shoulder injury and spent the season running the scout team: “He’s really got good arm talent. He went through the injury last year during camp, so it really set him back. So right now I think just the mental part, he’s having to catch up a little bit. But as far as his physical tools, he can make any throw you need him to make.”
• Canyon del Oro High School tailback Stevie Rocker attended practice and spent part of it chatting with new Arizona running backs coach AJ Steward.
Syndric Steptoe, Arizona’s director of player development, led a group of kids from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Tucson into practice. They posed for a picture with UA coach Kevin Sumlin during warmups.
