Rick Scuteri – USA TODAY Sports
The Arizona Wildcats are looking for a replacement for Matt Scott, who was a major surprise in his senior season when he broke out under first-year head coach Rich Rodriguez. Arizona has been looking at several options all spring long and will get a few more in the fall, each bringing a slightly different set of skills to the position. With spring practice wrapped up and Rodriguez left to his own machinations all summer long, could the Wildcats use a multiple-quarterback system in 2013?
Rodriguez certainly doesn’t seem set against it. In an interview with the Arizona Daily Star, the Wildcats’ head coach admitted that “the starting position will not be determined until the season starts and maybe past that.” During his time with the West Virginia Mountaineers and Michigan Wolverines, Rodriguez hasn’t been shy about switching between quarterbacks from drive to drive or even play to play if he thought one fit a situation better than another.
With the Wildcats, he has plenty of pieces to plug in and out of the lineup. During the spring, the competition was mainly between B.J. Denker, who acted as the backup quarterback to Scott last season, and former USC Trojans transfer Jesse Scroggins. Even though Scroggins was limited during the spring due to an injury, he was able to participate in some drills and get some experience with the offensive playbook. Rodriguez liked the improvement out of both quarterbacks and wasn’t comfortable picking one or the other this soon.
His choice won’t get any easier in August when fall camp opens, though. That’s when the team will welcome incoming freshmen Anu Solomon and Khari McGee into the mix and Rodriguez is committed to giving them every opportunity to earn playing time at quarterback. Many people have pegged Solomon as the most likely freshman quarterback of the 2013 class to make an immediate impact under center and he could play his way into the lineup, even on a part-time basis.
As the summer lull hits Tucson, Rich Rodriguez still has a quarterback conundrum on his hands. Who will win the No. 1 quarterback job? Will it be just one player to shines above the rest of the bunch or will Arizona turn to a quarterback by committee to get the job done in 2013?
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