Arizona football unsure about starting quarterback situation entering bye week
TUCSON — With about three minutes left of Arizona’s 44-6 rout of No. 19 Washington State on Saturday, when the Wildcats essentially secured their fourth win of the season, UA head coach Jedd Fisch turned to quarterback Jayden de Laura and asked him one question.
“’You wanna go in and take a knee?’ His face lit up,” Fisch said. “He said, ‘I would really appreciate it if you let me do that.”
It was a meaningful and wholesome moment for de Laura, who missed his third straight game with an ankle injury and played just that one snap against the team he quarterbacked for two seasons prior to transferring to Arizona following the 2021 season.
Redshirt freshman quarterback Noah Fifita, who started in place of de Laura since he injured his ankle before the fourth quarter of Arizona’s win over Stanford, had one condition for putting de Laura at quarterback for the final play.
“’ Only if I can be the receiver in the back,’” Fisch said. “So I had to kick (Jacob) Cowing out and not be the receiver in the back to take a knee, because Noah wanted to be the first person to hug Jayden after we won the game.”
It’s conceivable that Saturday’s win over de Laura’s former squad was the last snap he’ll play at Arizona, after the recent rise of Fifita, who was named Pac-12 Freshman of the Week for the second straight week on Monday. Fifita went 34 for 43 passing for 343 yards and didn’t have any passing touchdowns, but completed 79% of his passes and played his first complete game without any turnovers.
During his three-plus-game stretch as Arizona’s QB1, Fifita completed 90 of 121 passes (74%) for 924 yards, eight touchdowns and two interceptions. After the Washington State game on Saturday, Fisch eschewed commenting on the Wildcats’ quarterback hierarchy.
On Monday? Fisch still didn’t publicly declare who the full-time starter was.
“Right now, being in the bye week, as we’re evaluating where we are and as a team where we’ve been, we’re very fortunate,” Fisch said. “Two is better than none. So we have the ability to continue to grow in that position, grow in that quarterback room and see how good both of those guys can get.
“I think we all saw when Jayden went out there to take a knee, that was quite a hobble out there. That wasn’t a pretty jog. We really have to see how this ankle is coming along as we continue to work through what we’re going to do.”
Fifita’s passing yards have increased in every appearance, the Wildcats have logged season-highs in total offense in back-to-back games, and Arizona has scored 116 points with Fifita as the starter, while scoring 107 with de Laura, which was against Northern Arizona, Mississippi State, UTEP and the first three quarters against Stanford. Fifita was tasked with helping Arizona rally in the fourth quarter in a come-from-behind win at Stanford, followed by three straight opponents ranked in the Top 20.
No matter who takes the first snap when Arizona faces No. 12 Oregon State in Tucson on Oct. 28, “it’s pretty clear-cut that our team loves one another and if you watched the TV copy of the game, you saw everybody rooting for everybody,” said Fisch.
“If you saw the last where we saw Jayden take a knee on that field, you saw the embrace that occurred between Noah and Jayden. ... What we’ve worked hard on is the culture of family,” Fisch said. “We don’t just say it, we live by it.
“We’re working very, very hard to let the coaches make the decisions that they have to make on who’s going to be playing in the game, and whomever is playing in the game let’s be the best supporters you can possibly can be. I’ve seen that as a team and I hope to continue to see that within our team.”
For de Laura, “There’s a lot of learning that goes into not playing,” Fisch said.
“No. 1 is learning how to rehab, learning how to spend your days at the training room when you’ve never had to do that,” he added. “Preparing yourself to help the person in front of you, if you’re not necessarily accustomed to doing that; you’ve always been the person in front. How you work together and communicate what you see on the sidelines, seeing it from a different perspective.”
As Fisch pointed out on Monday, sometimes having the secondary role doesn’t always mean you’re counted out or not relied on in crisis situations. Fisch used third-stringer P.J. Walker quarterbacking the Cleveland Browns to an upset win over the undefeated San Francisco 49ers on Sunday as an example.
“What these guys need to do is learn how to be those backups. ... So you just don’t know how it’s all going to work itself out, so your job is to just learn, grow, mature and be a great teammate,” Fisch said.
If the Wildcats return with Fifita as the starter for the final five games of the season, Fisch said, “Noah has proven what we believe Noah was when we recruited him and signed here and brought him in.”
“Noah committed to us when we were 1-11 and coming off a 1-11 season. There’s a belief in one another, there’s a trust in one another, and there’s a growth with Noah that occurred every time he goes out there — that this kid is going to out-prepare everyone he’s going to face,” he said. “He’s going to do an amazing job investing time into the game of football. He’s going to work extremely hard on the practice field and make practice the most important thing to him.
“In addition, he’s going to make sure his life is in order. I’ve learned a ton from Noah. I keep watching him grow and keep seeing what a great teammate he is.”
Pac-12 football power rankings: Washington the team to beat after win vs. Oregon
Extra points
The Wildcats practiced on Monday and will have practices on Tuesday and Wednesday, along with a workout on Thursday, before taking Friday and Saturday off.
Following Arizona’s 38-point win entering the bye week, Fisch said, “We’re not going to be complacent at anything.” Added Fisch: “We’ve played some good football as of late against some really good teams. Those are three Top-20 teams in a row, and we feel like if you look at how we played, we sat there within a touchdown against Washington, within two points against USC on the road and then played our best football on the road again. We have one airplane trip left out of five games. This is the time we can see how good we can be.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona football unsure about who will start at QB vs. Oregon State
