UCLA Football: Previewing the Arizona Offense
The Arizona Wildcat offense, under new head coach Rich Rodriguez, is quite frankly the best offense UCLA will likely face all season.
The leader of this high-powered offense is without-a-doubt senior quarterback Matt Scott. The Corona native is 4th in the country in passing yards, averaging 354.4 yards per game. By the end of the game against the Bruins, he will easily surpass 3,000 yards passing on the season and he already has 20 passing touchdowns. Scott also is the Wildcat’s 2nd leading rusher with 365 yards on the ground and 2nd in touchdowns with four.
There was a little worry early in the week about the status of Scott after it appeared that he suffered a concussion against USC. Scott took a shot to the head late in the game and immediately was throwing up on the sidelines. Although this is common when a player has a concussion, he returned to the game, and threw a touchdown pass on that drive. He was later pulled because he was “woozy.”
Although Rodriguez took a lot of heat from the press about allowing Scott to return despite the clear signs of a concussion, Rodriguez evaded the rush and avoided any harm. He simply said, “It looked from my vantage point that whatever he had for breakfast is no longer in him. It’s all at about the 20 yard line. But that was a phenomenal throw. It probably won us the game.”
Take that how you want. Scott will play this Saturday.
Aside from Scott, who has received plenty of notoriety among Pac 12 fans and now nationally, the rest of the Arizona offense is a bit unnoticed nationally. Running Back Ka’Deem Carey leads a rushing unit that is 31st in the country in yards per game with 199. He averages over 5 yards per carry, has almost 1,000 yards on the season, and 12 rushing touchdowns. Carey also is the Wildcats 3rd leading receiver with 230 yards.
The receiving core is also very talented. Austin Hill, also a Corona native, had a career-best 259 yards against USC last week. He, like Carey, is also closing in on the 1,000 yard marker. He has 937 yards on the season on 54 catches, along with seven touchdowns. Opposite of Hill is senior Dan Buckner. Buckner is a very big 6-4 214 pounds. He is physical, strong, and is the Wildcats’ primary threat working the middle of the field.
With a UCLA defense that has struggled at times this season and an Arizona offense that is red hot right now, the Bruins will have their hands full stopping the nations’ 20th ranked scoring offense. A stat that could shift this game in the Bruins favor is that the Wildcats offense averages only 24 points per game on the road(albeit a small sample size of two games), down from 39.1 points per game on the season.