Arizona coach Rodriguez: Stage wasn’t too big for 17-year-old Khalil Tate
Oct 3, 2016, 10:51 AM
Arizona backup quarterback Khalil Tate (14) sets to pass against UCLA in the second half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 1, 2016, in Pasadena, Calif. UCLA won 45-24. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
(AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
The old football adage goes something like this: If you have two quarterbacks, you have none.
What if you have three? How about four?
That’s the scenario the Arizona Wildcats have found themselves in, as in Saturday’s 45-24 loss to UCLA the team used three different passers in Brandon Dawkins, Zach Werlinger and Khalil Tate while Anu Solomon, the Week 1 starter, remains sidelined with a knee injury.
Dawkins started the game, but was hurt in the second quarter. Monday morning, Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez talked to Doug and Wolf on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM about his situation at the most important position on the field.
“Brandon bruised some ribs and — I was really pleased, he was playing well and certainly gives us a threat — so when he went down we put the next guy in, Zach Werlinger, and the next guy in Khalil Tate — we were trying to redshirt him, he’s just a 17-year-old freshman.
“But we had to get him in there and I thought he played pretty well; the stage wasn’t too big for him and he did OK for his first action as a 17-year-old true freshman.”
Escapability. Arm. Accuracy.
Welcome to the Pac-12, Khalil Tate: pic.twitter.com/ytkWVvuVPV
— Ari Alexander (@AriA1exander) October 2, 2016
#UCLA's Tom Bradley on UA QB Khalil Tate: "I didn’t know too much about 14 before today. That’s somebody else’s headache now." @serrasports
— Thuc Nhi Nguyen (@thucnhi21) October 2, 2016
Rodriguez said Dawkins is “day-to-day” while he is unsure of Solomon’s status, so Tate is set to get more practice reps this week.
Against the Bruins, Dawkins completed 8-of-17 passes for 73 yards and one touchdown while Tate connected on 5-of-9 throws for 72 yards and two scores. Dawkins added 44 yards on five runs; Tate 79 on 15.
Werlinger did not complete any of his five passes and lost four yards on two rushes.
No football team would like to be going as far down the depth chart as the Wildcats have, and at 2-3 (0-2 in the Pac-12) Arizona’s season appears to be on the brink.
That’s probably why Rodriguez relented on the idea of redshirting Tate, a four-star recruit who also held offers from Florida State, Nebraska, UCLA, USC and Texas A&M, among others. He was supposed to be a big part of the program’s future, not factor into the present.
“But the last couple weeks, since Solomon’s been out, we’ve been giving him some reps with the twos and slowly giving him pieces of the playbook and getting him ready just in case,” Rodriguez said. “We were hoping Brandon would stay healthy of course, but when that happened, and we needed a little bit more dynamic help back there, we said, ‘What the heck, let’s play him and see how he does and go from there.’
“Again, he did enough to encourage us that hey, we’re not going to redshirt him; let’s get him ready to play and it’s a long season, still a lot of games left, and we’ll go from there.”
