ESPN: Arizona’s Tate one of the most exciting players in college football

Despite Saturday’s close loss in Hawaii, Arizona quarterback Khalil Tate is one of college football’s most exciting players.

ESPN writer Edward Aschoff named Tate an exciting player to watch for this season as long as he can stay healthy. Last season, Tate was tabbed as a potential Heisman Trophy finalist, but his season was derailed by lingering injuries.

Aschoff noted:

But when he was moving around in 2017, Tate was a wizard with his legs, becoming the first Pac-12 quarterback to rush for 1,000 yards in a season (1,411). The darting and dicing Tate averaged 128.3 rushing YPG that year and captured the nation with the FBS rushing record for a quarterback with 327 yards against Colorado.

Tate went 22 of 29 for 361 yards Saturday. He had three touchdowns and two interceptions.

Additionally, he almost sent the game to overtime when he took off from the Hawaii 31-yard line, but was tackled at the one-yard line.

Arizona was about to send the game into overtime in dramatic fashion…then it didn’t. Wildcats drop one to Hawaii 45-38. pic.twitter.com/mv92jDlyNC

— FOX Sports Arizona (@FOXSPORTSAZ) August 25, 2019

Colorado wide receiver Laviska Shenault Jr. was the only other player from the Pac-12 to receive recognition.

Shenault led the Pac-12 with 86 catches last year in only nine games. He also ranked second nationally with 125.1 scrimmage yards per game. fourth nationally with 3.7 yards per route run.

He missed three games after injuring his foot against USC, but he is fully healthy this season.

Suprisingly, Aschoff left out quarterback standouts Trevor Lawrence and Tua Tagovailoa. He noted that while they’re dazzling, they weren’t as exciting as the players on the list.

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