The Arizona Wildcats’ final scrimmage of fall camp was Saturday night, and for the most part it was pretty vanilla as neither the offense nor the defense showed much.

Head Coach Mike Stoops seemed very optimistic after the 80-play scrimmage the featured one touchdown, four picks, two missed field goals and just a few big plays.

Nick Foles led the Wildcat offense to their lone touchdown drive. On the first play of the drive he hit David Douglas in the seam for a 20-yard gain. On second down Gino Crump faked out two defensive backs and had them beat by 10 yards. Foles lofted a long pass that was overthrown, but Crump did no favors when he failed to stretch out for the ball.

Another 10-yard completion to Douglas put the Wildcats at the defense’s 39-yard line. Foles went deep again, looking for Juron Criner down the left sideline. Although Shaquille Richardson was going stride for stride with Criner, but the taller receiver rose up and snagged the pass at the goal line for the touchdown.

Foles led the Wildcat offense to their lone touchdown drive. On the first play of the drive he hit David Douglas in the seam for a 20-yard gain. On second down Gino Crump faked out two defensive backs and had them beat by 10 yards. Foles lofted a long pass that was overthrown, but Crump did no favors when he failed to stretch out for the ball.

Another 10-yard completion to Douglas put the Wildcats at the defense’s 39-yard line. Foles went deep again, looking for Juron Criner down the left sideline. Although Shaquille Richardson was going stride for stride with Criner, but the taller receiver rose up and snagged the pass at the goal line for the touchdown.

Foles was mostly sharp completing 10-16 passes for 136 yards.

Less than a week into fall football camp it is hard to tell a lot about the team, but stories and themes are starting to emerge.

So far Nick Foles has been sharp and it is obvious that Matt Scott is attempting to redshirt this season, allowing him to battle for the starting job as a fifth year starter in 2012. Bryson Beirne has been getting the bulk of the snaps with the second team, while Scott, the back-up in 2010, works with the scout team.

Keola Antolin and Daniel Jenkins are holding down the top two spots at running back and the real competition seems to be for the third running back job. Sophomore Kylan Butler has the edge early in camp, but walk-on Terris Jones and true freshman Ka’Deem Carey are getting their opportunities.

Heading into fall camp we knew the Arizona receiving corps was deep, but this appears top be the deepest the unit has ever been. Juron Criner is back with the team after attending to some personal matters over the summer. He does not appear 100% in shape, but is still making plays. Once he improves his conditioning, watch out.

Newcomer Dan Buckner, the Texas transfer, appears as good as advertised, while Tyler Slavin has made play after play.

Terrence Miller has been a go-to guy during 2:00 drills and he gives the Cats yet another big target.

All eyes are on the offensive line and so far, so good. The starting five of Mickey Baucus, Fabbians Ebelle, Chris Putton, Trace Biskin and Kyle Quinn have been solid and early on have fended off challenges from second teamers.

The biggest news among the line is the addition of Jack Baucus, who moves from tight end to tackle.

Another position of interest has been the defensive ends who have to replace three players drafted by the NFL. So far Muhammed Usman and C.J. Parish have been very good and true freshmen Reggie Gilbert and Dame Ndiaye have shown that the future at the position seems very bright.

Junior college transfer David Lopez will start alongside Paul Vassallo and Derek Earls when the Cats go with their 4-3 base defense, but all indications are that the Wildcats will spend a lot of time in their nickel and dime packages.

So far the defensive backs have also played well. Shaq Richardson and Jonathan McKnight are in a real battle to start opposite of senior Trevin Wasde and Derrick Rainey is also showing well at corner.

There is less competition at safety where Rob Golden and Marquis Flowers have their jobs all but sewn up.

Alex Zendejas and Jaime Salazar are in a duel for the place kicking job. Many assumed that after last year’s disasterous finish that Zendejas would be out of a job, but he worked hard over the summer and the job probably won’t be decided early in camp.

So far the Wildcats have remained relatively injury free, which is especially good news after all of the injuries during spring ball. Two of those injured players, linebacker Jake Fischer and safety Adam Hall, appear to be ahead of schedule and may have a tough decision to make about whether to play this year or use a redshirt.

The basketball season is still nearly five months away, but it is not too early to take an early look at how the roster shapes up. We’ll start by looking at the point guard position.

Jordin Mayes (Rick Faust/WildcatSportsReport.com)

So MoMo Jones is gone and the Wildcat may have more overall talent at the position than they did a year ago. Jones will not be easy to replace. He was a leader and one of the players who proved he could hit big shots, but he was not a pure point guard. Prior to the Pac-10 season he was struggling, so much so that during the Bethune Cookman game I said to the person next to me “I wonder which MAAC school he’ll play at next season?” Well, I said Manhattan, it turned out to be Iona. (I also said Long Island, but they are in the Northeast Conference.)

By season’s end, I had changed my tune. The Cal game made many believers and Jones was one of the Cats’ most visible players, but he still wasn’t a point guard.

In my opinion a sophomore Jordin Mayes and a freshman Josiah Turner are more talented than a sophomore Jones and a freshman Mayes. They will miss Jones, but the talent to be better is there. (more…)

While most other 2011 freshmen quarterbacks were studying for midterms or worrying about spring break, Daxx Garman was participating in the University of Arizona’s spring practice.

While those other quarterbacks were getting ready to graduate and prepping for the prom, Garman was learning the playbook and prepping for the 2011 season.

Garman graduated early from Southlake Carroll High School in the Dallas area and enrolled at Arizona in January.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that 6-2 Garman was ruled ineligible for his senior year after moving from Oklahoma to Texas for violating transfer rules. As such, Garman did not get to play at all his senior season.

“We’re disappointed he wasn’t able to play this year and that was kind of a sad thing,” Mike Stoops admitted.

The good news is he essentially gets a jumpstart on his college career and will actually get 5 ½ years on a college campus.

“It’s great to get six months ahead of everybody and really pick up on the offense so I really know what I am doing,” Garman said. “Just being out here learning just what to do.”

Garman did not get a ton of reps during the spring, which was no surprise considering there were three seniors on the roster, but did get invaluable lessons on how to handle himself and how to prepare.

“I have three seniors ahead of me and they are really helping me out,” Garman explained. “When one of them is in, the other two tell me what to do, what they’ve done in the past and what to look for here. They all three have really helped me out.”

For a longer feature on Garman, plus all your UofA football coverage, please check out WildcatSportsReport.com

We are only two weeks into the college football season and a lot of things will change as teams start to figure things out and work out the kinks. That does not mean we can’t learn a lot about teams from these early season games.

Arizona 52, Citadel 6
What did we really learn from this game? Not much. The good news that Arizona pummeled the Bulldogs and that is what big boy football teams do, beat the crap out of lower division teams. The Cats were better at every position and never let Citadel feel they were in the game.

Iowa 35, Iowa State 7
The Cyclones are no good, but Iowa looks really tough. They just dominated the time of possession, which made this one actually lower scoring than it should have been. The Hawkeyes had the ball for 13:30 of the first quarter and only scored seven points because their second possession stretched into the second quarter. This is a legitimate top-10 team.

California 52, Colorado 7
Is Cal better than we thought? I still don’t believe in Cal quarterback Kevin Riley, but the Beats sure look like a team destined to finish in the top half of the league. Colorado, on the other hand, is awful. This team does not look like they will be able to compete in the Pac-10. If I would have told you in the mid-90’s that when Utah and Colorado came to the Pac-10 it would be the Utes that bring more to the table, you’d think I was crazy. If this keeps up, Dan Hawkins will not be coaching the Buffs in their new league.

Washington 41, Syracuse 20
The Huskies bounce back from the loss at BYU with a win over a moribund program. I did not see enough to sell me on the Huskies, but they did look pretty good. They are sure looking like a top half of the league team, but I don’t think they will challenge for the league title.

Washington State 23, Montana State 22
Not only did the Huskies have to score 16 fourth quarter points, not only did they have to score a touchdown in the final minutes, the Cougars had to get a redzone interception to seal the win over an average I-AA team. Savor this one Wazzou, it is probably your last win for awhile.

Oregon 48, Tennessee 13
Uh-oh, the Ducks are good, very good. The road to Pasadena goes through Eugene.

ASU 41, NAU 20
Closer than the score indicates, but ASU did show some good things and Threet seems to be a pretty good find and the Devil offense may not be as bad as I thought.

Stanford 35, UCLA 0
I am still not sure if the Cardinal are good, but now we know UCLA is really bad. How bad, my wife claims she can rush for 100 yards against the Bruins’ run defense. They seemed destined for ninth.

USC 17, Virginia 14
An uninspiring win from an uninspiring team. USC does not look great and I STILL don’t know if Kiffin can coach.

Toledo 20, Ohio 13
This makes the Cats’ opening season win look more impressive. Not sure how good either of these teams are, but the Bobcats were 1-0 heading into this match.