As of right now the idea of Arizona winning the Pac – 12 South is all but a dream long forgotten. The amount of hardship thus far in the season has proven to be quite a difficult task for the team to try to overcome and now it is time to try and find their center. As of right now, their season goal is to try and gain bowl eligibility. Their first task in that goal is to beat the Stanford Cardinal.
Stanford Making the Change
After a season that has seen senior Ryan Burns struggle to get to over 1,000 yards this season, coach David Shaw has finally decided to shake up the starting roster. Junior quarterback Keller Chryst will make his first start at the collegiate level this Saturday and he will look to try and add some life to an offense that has been one of the worst in the conference. The Cardinal currently ranks dead last in scoring and total offense with only ten touchdowns scored to this point in the season. There are players on other teams in the Pac – 12 that hold more touchdowns than Stanford does as a team currently and those kinds of numbers are very striking considering the Cardinal was supposed to have a breakout season on offense with the help of running back Christian McCaffrey, who still is a top star in the conference with his 175 all-purpose yards per game. There hasn’t been much film on Chryst as he has only been in ten games in relief efforts, only throwing 27 passes in that time.
Which Quarterback For Rich Rod
This will be an interesting choice for Rich Rodriguez going into this next contest as he finally has a starting caliber quarterback on the active list and not on the injury report. Just one problem. It just so happens that it is starting caliber quarterbacks, meaning more than one. Anu Solomon and Brandon Dawkins are both finally healthy enough to participate in this week’s contest and that is a very good situation to be in. Solomon has been out since the BYU game and Dawkins was out last week with a concussion. Both wins that the Wildcats have this year have been with Dawkins under center and he has been quite an impressive player running the ball out of the backfield as a second option. Solomon on the other hand is the all-time leader in passing yards and touchdowns, thus having him back under center adds to the threat down the field in Rodriguez’s scheme. The starter hasn’t been listed yet as it looks to be a game time decision, but the safe bet would be to see Solomon back as Rodriguez seems to be dedicated to his original starter going back to their first season together in the program.
Keeping the Quarterback Clean
Even though the Wildcats have seen a slew of injured quarterbacks on the year thus far, it has little to do with the offensive line play. The men up front for Arizona have relinquished the second fewest amount of sacks this season in the conference and have been one of the more steady groups up to this point in the season across the country in that regard. They will be going up against a strong defensive front however led by two top talents in Solomon Thomas and Harrison Phillips who have both recorded at least one sack over the last three games. Thomas leads the team with 5 ½ sacks this year and can be a very disruptive force in the backfield not only on the quarterback but disrupting the flow of the run game. If the Arizona offensive line can maintain their blocks and pre-snap reads then they should be able to keep their quarterback, whoever Rodriguez happens to pick in this game, healthy for another week going forward.
The game will kick off at Arizona Stadium in Tucson this Saturday at 8:00 PM on FOX Sports 1.