Throughout fall camp, BYU hasn’t been the only team to be dealing with an extensive quarterback battle. And that’s played a role in how the Cougars have prepped for the Arizona Wildcats — their first opponent of the 2021 season.
On Tuesday, first-year Arizona coach Jedd Fisch threw a curveball: both Gunner Cruz and Will Plummer will play against BYU. That decision isn’t expected to last all season, but the two-quarterback package will be part of Arizona’s offensive plan at least early on.
“We expect both of them to get reps, both of them to play in the game, both of them to be prepared to lead drives,” Fisch said. “We’re going to go with the approach that two is better than one, and that’s our mentality.”
So, how much of a curveball is that for the Cougars? Maybe not much, if at all.
Before Arizona made its decision public during an in-person availability with local media, BYU defensive coordinator Ilaisa Tuiaki said the staff has been watching all three of Arizona’s possible quarterbacks (Cruz, Plummer and Jordan McCloud) and started to break down “the potential problems each of them could bring.”
”We’re just trying to have a contingency plan for each of the kids as they come in,” Tuiaki said. “I mean, it’s hard to just wholesale change what you’re doing — there’s got to be little tiny nuances that you change when somebody else comes in, but I feel like we’ve been getting a good dose of it with our own offense with Baylor [Romney], Jaren [Hall] and Jacob [Conover].”
BYU’s fall camp officially finished their fall camp Tuesday and start Arizona prep on Wednesday. But before that can start, coaches were set to have meetings with the players Tuesday afternoon to notify them of their place on the depth chart before releasing it on Wednesday.
Coach Kalani Sitake said the coaches wanted the chance to talk to all the players who made, or didn’t, the two-deep.
“We’ll have a majority of our depth chart figured out tomorrow, including the quarterback,” Sitake said.
BYU wide receiver will miss season after having surgery
One of the Cougars that won’t be on the depth chart is Brayden Cosper.
The sophomore wide receiver suffered a season-ending injury and had surgery a few days ago, Sitake said. While having Cosper in the mix would have added more versatility to the wide receivers, the position group is still loaded with plenty of returning and transferred talent.
Besides Cosper, there haven’t been any other major injury updates out of camp.
“Other than that, everybody is still in play for the first game,” Sitake said. ”There’s still some guys that got banged up in camp — we had a physical camp ... [but] right now they’re still in play for the game, though. They’re all in play for Arizona, we’ll just have to see, when we get closer to the game, if those guys will be ready to roll.”
As far as whether or not the team accomplished everything the staff set out to, Sitake said it did. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out what pieces fit in best against each opponent, starting with Arizona.
“I really like our depth,” Sitake said. “I like what I’ve seen through camp — the chemistry on our team, the connection they have with each other and also with the fanbase. And my expectations are for our guys to perform at our best.”
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