Arizona Wildcats football: Passing game needs big plays to provide balance

Arizona Wildcats coach Rich Rodriguez wants a better passing game. That’s not the same thing as balance.

You hear a lot about that. Balance. Which is fine, as long as you’re not looking for the running and passing attempts to approximate each other. It’s OK to talk about if you’re not looking for the rushing and passing yards to be in the same neighborhood.

“Balance means you’re doing whatever it takes to score points,” said Arizona quarterbacks coach Rod Smith.

“If that means throwing it 70 times, you throw it 70 times. That’s balance. Balance equals scoring. It doesn’t mean 35 runs, 35 passes. Being effective at whatever you’ve got to do, that’s balance.”

The passing game is Arizona’s primary concern through a 2-0 start in which the Wildcats have failed to throw for 100 yards in either game. UA is second-to-last nationally with 84.0 passing yards per game, ahead of only triple-option Navy.

Arizona, heading into Saturday night’s game against Texas-San Antonio, has attempted 34 passes while running 74 times.

“Our strength is our run game because of our running backs and our veteran offensive line,” said quarterback B.J. Denker. “It’s easier to hand the ball off than throw it down the field.”

So, Arizona is running the ball 68.5 percent of the time.

Should that number be a concern?

Absolutely not.

It was easy to get spoiled last year when Arizona had Matt Scott at quarterback and the most “balanced” offense Rodriguez has ever had as a head coach (see chart below), but his best teams at West Virginia weren’t what you would call evenly split between the run and the pass.

–His 2007 Mountaineers, who finished 11-2 and sixth in the final AP poll, were third nationally in rushing and 114th in passing, running the ball 70.3 percent of the time.

–His 2006 team, which was 11-2 and 10th in the country, was second in the nation in rushing and 100th in passing, running on 71.7 percent of its plays.

“Everybody talks about you want to be 50-50,” Smith said.

“Nobody sits up there (in the coaches box) and says, ‘We ran it 12 times, we better throw it three more times to catch up.’”

Arizona will throw it more moving forward, if only because it doesn’t figure to be sitting on big second-half leads and merely running the ball to get to the end of the game. Opportunities could be abundant. Defenses will scheme to stop the run (if they can). When they do, that’s when the passing game needs to hit the big play.

Rodriguez talks about how when he was the offensive coordinator at Tulane in the late 1990s, quarterback Shaun King was perfect on hitting the home-run throw as the team went 12-0 in 1998.

“I don’t remember him ever, one, missing an open receiver and, two, missing a single touchdown play — where the guy is wide open and if you connect with him, it’s going to be a touchdown,” Rodriguez said.

“Shaun was 100 percent on those. And that’s very rare. Even the best of quarterbacks rarely have that kind of year. Matt was close to that last year. That is what we’ve missed in the last couple of games. We’ve had a couple touchdown throws or plays and didn’t quite connect.”

Denker, who overthrew several deep passes last week at UNLV, is the flashpoint of criticism. Fair enough. He’s the quarterback. But it’s not like he was Austin Hill (injured), David Richards (injured), Dan Buckner (graduated) or even Tyler Slavin (left team) to catch his passes.

It’s the entire passing game, with its mostly young receivers, that is out of sync, not just Denker. He’s not always getting the biggest of targets to hit.

“One time, they might run the wrong route and maybe the very next play it’s me,” Denker said. “We all have to be on the same page and have 11 guys do the right job.”

Just a few throws a game — not dozens of more passes — will make the air attack look a lot better. In other words, it will make the offense look balanced. Run until they stop it, make them pay dearly when they dare you to pass.

“When we have those big-play opportunities, we have to connect,” Rodriguez said.

* * *

Arizona’s current run-pass split is more in line with Rich Rodriguez’s totals at West Virginia. Here is a look at each of his years as a head coach, which shows how good the Cats’ attack was last season:

Year	Team	Plays	Pass	Run	Run%	First downs	Games
2012	Arizona	1,082	538	544	50.3	381	13
2010	Michigan	941	385	556	59.0	299	13
2009	Michigan	823	329	494	60.0	235	12
2008	Michigan	791	338	453	57.3	186	12
2007	West Virginia	893	265	628	70.3	279	13
2006	West Virginia	823	233	590	71.7	273	13
2005	West Virginia	818	193	625	76.4	225	12
2004	West Virginia	849	259	590	69.5	243	12
2003	West Virginia	852	252	600	70.4	219	12
2002	West Virginia	993	279	714	71.9	281	13
2001	West Virginia	832	357	475	57.1	218	11
		9,697	3428	6269	64.6	2839	136