Arizona Beat Writer Answers Questions About Cal's Next Opponent
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Arizona's only win last season came against Cal in Tucson, and the Wildcats appear to be considerably better than they were last year as they prepare for their Pac-12 opener at Cal on Saturday.
Each week we ask a reporter who covers Cal's next football opponent to answer five questions about the Bears' upcoming foe. This week we posed five questions about Arizona's football team to Arizona Daily Star reporter Michael Lev, who provided some insightful answers about the 2-1 Wildcats.
1. How surprised are you that Arizona has started 2-1, and are the Wildcat as good as the record suggests?
"I would say moderately surprised in that they had a very difficult nonconference schedule," Lev said in the video atop this story regarding San Diego State, Mississippi State and North Dakota State. "You could have easily envisioned a scenario where Arizona was 0-3 coming out of the nonconference slate. I think 3-0 would have been a stretch, 2-1 is probably the best-case scenario."
Arizona had only one penalty and no turnovers in the 31-28 win over North Dakota State.
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2. What has second-year head coach Jedd Fisch done to improve Arizona so significantly in one season?
."I think the biggest thing Jedd has done to improve the team is literally improve the roster," Lev said.
A highly rated recruiting class, several of whom are playing prominent roles as freshmen, and the addition of a host of impact transfers has improved the personnel available. The Wildcats have 51 new players on a roster of 111 players.
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3. How much of Arizona’s early success should be attributed to transfer quarterback Jayden de Laura? What has he done well and not so well this season?
"There's no question that Arizona has upgraded at quarterback with Jayden de Laura," Lev said. "It was a problem area for them all of last season.
"Now they have stability, they have experience, and they have a savvy playmaker at that position."
He's been better in some games than others this season, and he's been better at avoiding sacks than last year's Arizona quarterbacks.
His best asset? "I would say that it's improvising," Lev said, "Turning those broken plays into positive plays."
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.4. How good is Arizona’s defense, which ranks 11th in the Pac-12 in scoring defense, and how good is linebacker Jerry Roberts, who is averaging more than 10 tackles per game?
"They're not giving up a lot of big plays, which is significant," Lev said. "I think they're top 10 in the country in terms of fewest plays allowed of 20-plus yards.
"They had six takeaways all of last season. They already have six takeaways this season."
"As for Jerry Roberts, he's very high on the list to me of players Arizona could least afford to lose," Lev said, noting his comeback from a broken leg sustained late last season.
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.5. How important to this year’s success was last year’s 10-3 win over Cal?
"I think it was really important," Lev said.
The Wildcats had lost 20 straight games coming into that contest against Cal.
"That black cloud was just hovering over the program, creating this overall pervasive sense of negativity that was hard to get past.
"It was ugly but it was necessary, and they are in a lot better place now than they were then."
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Cover photo of Jayden de Laura by Mark J. Rebilas, USA TODAY Sports
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