Rodriguez: QB change vs. Colorado was made to find a spark

After scoring on their first three drives of the game, the Arizona Wildcats went eight straight drives without points. With his offense struggling and his team trailing the Colorado Buffaloes on the road, Arizona Wildcats coach Rich Rodriguez elected to make a change at quarterback.

So to the bench went Anu Solomon, the starter for the last season and a half, and in came Jerrard Randall.

With the drive beginning at Arizona’s own three-yard line, Randall ran for 15 yards on first down, giving the Wildcats some breathing room. Five plays later, running back Jared Baker was galloping 45 yards into the end zone to tie the game at 24.

If Rodriguez was searching for a spark, he found one.

“It’s never easy,” he told Doug and Wolf on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM about the decision to turn to Randall. “But as I explained to our team last night, we view all the positions the same. Everybody makes a big deal about the quarterback position, who’s in there and all that. But the way we try to run our program with a competition aspect of it every day, not just every week. Everybody’s got to be ready to play, and if a guy’s just not quite on for some reason, we’ll give the next guy a shot if he’s earned it.

“And that’s what’s happened. Anu Solomon is a really good football player. It wasn’t just him — we just needed a little bit of a spark, particularly with the way they were playing us.”

Rodriguez said Randall really changed the momentum of the game, and he could not be more right. Arizona’s defense forced a punt after the game was tied up, and the Wildcats took the lead on the ensuing drive, one that included 20 yards from Randall on the ground and another 42 through the air. Perhaps fittingly, the scoring play was a 25-yard pass from Solomon to Baker after Randall had to leave the game due to getting banged up.

Colorado would score on its next drive to make it 31-24, but after Arizona recovered the Buffaloes’ onside kick, Randall quickly led another drive, this time with the QB himself taking the ball into the end zone from one yard out.

Overall, Randall completed 3-of-3 passes for 42 yards while running for 81 yards and one touchdown, while Solomon completed 22-of-37 passes for 283 yards and two touchdowns. The victory improved Arizona’s record to 5-2, 2-2 in the Pac-12, and now will return to Tucson to face a surging Washington State (4-2, 2-1) team.

Asked who his quarterback will be for the afternoon affair, which happens to be the Wildcats’ homecoming game, Rodriguez said, “You’ll just have to tune in Saturday at 1 o’clock.”

“I’m not trying to be coy,” he said after some laughter. “Anu Solomon is still the starter, but I think he’s got a little competition certainly with Jerrard Randall, so we’ll see what happens in practice — I’m not going to say that Anu’s going to start on Saturday. But he’s a good football player.

“What I was most proud of is when Anu went out and we put Jerrard in, and Jerrard got the wind knocked out of him for a little bit and Anu came back in and threw a touchdown pass and stayed in the game — he didn’t go sulk his head or anything like that. We’ll just have a good week of practice and see who comes out on top.”

Despite what happened Saturday, Solomon would still seem to be the favorite to take the field with Arizona’s offense. The redshirt sophomore has completed 62.6 percent of his passes this season for 1,404 yards with 13 touchdowns and zero interceptions, whereas Randall has completed 48 percent of his passes for 278 yards and two touchdowns with one pick.

Where Randall has the advantage, however, is as a runner, as he has gained 534 yards and five touchdowns on 48 carries. Solomon is no slouch in terms of scrambling away from pressure, but he is in no way the kind of threat Randall is.

Rodriguez noted the differences between the two, adding that Randall has a great arm even if it is not as accurate.

“We have all the quarterbacks run all of the offense, but inevitably some guys’ strengths are better than others,” the coach said. “We try to cater their skill sets to what we’re going to call. So we’ve got a lot of offense, but what we’ve got to try to do is making sure, ‘OK, he can just do this and he can just do that’ even though that might be what we feature.”

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