By Matt Swartz
FOXSportsArizona.com
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- "It’s probably gonna be ugly."
That was a prediction from Rich Rodriguez prior to Arizona’s scrimmage Saturday at Glendale Community College, the team’s first scrimmage of the spring and Rodriguez’s first chance to see his new team in a game-like setting.
In some ways, he was right. There was plenty of ugly, including a handful of bad snaps, some dropped passes, a couple of incorrect alignments, several missed tackles and, of course, two missed extra-point attempts, a problem that’s plagued the Wildacts for the past several seasons.
But it wasn’t all bad. The first-team offense was generally sharp, with redshirt senior quarterback Matt Scott in command and displaying impressive mobility and accuracy. Scott led the offense to three touchdowns (a fourth was called back) on five possessions, all against the first-team defense. The trio of running backs all looked good, as did the starting receivers, and defensive starters Jake Fischer at linebacker and Adam Hall at safety took most of the first-team snaps after missing all of last season with knee injuries.
And – as roving-the-field athletic director Greg Byrne pointed out -- on a beautiful spring day, about 1,000 fans showed up to get a first glimpse of the Rodriguez era.
Asked afterward whether he viewed the scrimmage performance as good or bad, Rodriguez was noncommittal.
"Both. That’s what it was: good and bad," Rodriguez said.
"We’ll watch the film on the way back, but there were some execution issues, I think, on both sides of the ball. ... I thought we were crisper offensively in (Friday’s) practice."
The execution errors were obvious and numerous, even though Rodriguez reiterated several times that only a small portion of the playbook has been installed on each side of the ball. Then again, that wasn’t unexpected considering the limited time Rodriguez and his staff have had to work with the players, with practice starting March 5 and taking a hiatus for spring break.
In that regard, the offensive production was a pleasant surprise. Scott made several big plays, some by scrambling and some by finding receivers downfield while rolling out.
"What we’ve got in (of the playbook), he’s got a pretty good grasp of,” Rodriguez said of Scott, who redshirted last season behind Nick Foles to have a shot at the full-time job this season.
"Matt is putting the effort in. I’ve been really pleased with his progress."
For his part, Scott said he feels good about his knowledge of the new offense.
"I’m real comfortable (with the playbook). It’s a lot of what I ran in high school, so it’s kind of come back to me … zone read and everything, so it’s kind of natural to me."
He added, "Little by little, we’re getting better every day."
The running backs certainly looked to be improved, as Daniel Jenkins, Ka’Deem Carey and Kylan Butler regularly broke tackles and broke off big runs. Jenkins took a majority of the snaps with the starters and had perhaps the best run of the day when he broke out of a pile near midfield, cut to his right and outran the safeties to the end zone for the starting offense’s second touchdown.
Carey also showed off his cutting ability on a couple of impressive runs, and Butler – who stands 5-foot-7 and has just eight career carries – stood out on the second unit.
"Three-headed monster is what I call 'em," Scott said of the running backs. "They’re just out there running that ball – each of them had a touchdown. So yeah, they’re playing good. They’re capable of that, though. They’ve been capable of that for a while."
It was an unusual look for a team that finished 114th nationally (out of 120 teams) in rushing last season at 94.5 yards per game. As for whether the offense was sharper than expected or the defense simply wasn’t far enough along, Rodriguez leaned toward the latter.
"Like the rest of the spring, at times there were some pretty good plays (on defense), and other times we didn’t do a good enough job getting off blocks and tackling,” he said. "We’ve got a lot of work to do. But I’ve got a lot of confidence in our defensive staff."
The good news for the defense was the apparently full-strength play of Hall and Fischer, who said after the scrimmage that he is 100 percent in his recovery from a torn ACL.
Fischer, who was fourth on the team two years ago with 58 tackles, said he’s quickly becoming a fan of the 3-3-5 defense brought in by Jeff Casteel, formerly the defensive coordinator at West Virginia.
“I like it. It lets you go downhill and just hit people. ... It can help us out a lot because we have extra DBs/linebackers," Fischer said.
The one thing every player pointed out – albeit without the same enthusiasm Fischer demonstrated for the 3-3-5 – was the famously breakneck tempo with which Rodriguez operates, something it appeared not everyone was ready for even after the first few practices of spring.
Rodriguez had a few demonstrative shows of frustration during the scrimmage and said those were due almost as much to lack of hustle as they were to a lack of execution.
"The biggest thing that all our guys have to understand is the effort that we gotta play with should never be compromised," Rodriguez said. "Whether it’s a scrimmage or a practice or certainly a game, we’ve gotta play as hard as we can on every snap."
Rodriguez said the up-tempo concept has to extend beyond the football field for Arizona to accomplish the goals he’s set out for it in his first four months on the job.
"One of the key words I’ve been using is to have a sense of urgency all the time – not just when we’re practicing but when we’re meeting or when they don’t have academic work or something else to do, they’ve gotta have a sense of urgency to be the best that they can be," Rodriguez said.
"If we want to take the next step and truly change the culture of Arizona football, as far as our players understanding how important it is, then they gotta have that sense of urgency."
NOTES: Running back Greg Nwoko, listed at 237 pounds and recovering from a torn ACL, appears to have a slightly different role in the new offense. With Rodriguez’s preference for smaller, shiftier backs, Nwoko took snaps at fullback and in an H-back-type position. He made one spectacular catch on a deep pattern after coming out of the backfield, pulling the ball down over a well-positioned defender and coming down just short of the end zone. ...
Kicker John Bonano missed one extra-point attempt and had another blocked. Two other PATs by backup Jake Smith were deflected before going through. ...
Rodriguez said backup quarterback Richard Morrison, who moved to the position from receiver at the beginning of spring, tweaked his shoulder in warm-ups, which limited his participation. Rodriguez added that he’d been impressed with Morrison’s quick absorption of the offense. ...
The starting receivers were Dan Buckner, Austin Hill and Tyler Slavin, who does not have a catch in his career but came up with several impressive grabs Saturday, including one over-the-shoulder catch for a long touchdown that came back on a holding penalty. Hill had two TD receptions in the scrimmage. ...
Arizona has a second spring scrimmage scheduled for April 14 at Kino Stadium.
