After receiving the day off on Monday, Arizona returned to the practice field Tuesday morning. Quarterback Jayden de Laura continued to show his progressions under center as he becomes more comfortable with the Wildcats' offense, while receiver Dorian Singer shined with a number of contested catches.
Arizona quarterbacks coach Jimmie Dougherty along with de Laura spoke to the media following Tuesday's practice.
Here are five takeaways from what they had to say in the post-practice interview session:
The recent success of JDL in camp
There is no denying it was a shaky start to camp for de Laura as he continued to get adjusted to the offense coming from a completely different system at Washington State. That began to change in recent practices with coaches sensing more confidence for the reigning Pac-12 Freshman of the Year.
"I'm seeing him be more comfortable in the scheme and where the answers are," Dougherty said about de Laura. "Starting to master things, he is starting to get really good and comfortable. He is continuing to be really good under center as well as the different stuff that we're doing. Pretty much the whole offense is in at this point, but he is doing a great job with all his checks, knowing where to go with the ball, seeing the defense, being comfortable back there and making great decisions with the ball."
It was previously noted by Jedd Fisch that it was a walkthrough last Thursday when the offense and the scheme started to "click" for de Laura, and he has reached a new comfort level since that time.
"I don't know exactly what it was, but it did seem to somehow just click for him," Dougherty said. "All of a sudden it just made sense to him. That's really when he turned that corner and you could feel him just be more at ease, be more comfortable back there, be more comfortable calling the plays, getting to his checks and things like that."
On his own recent success, de Laura said he thought he just needed a couple of days to get on the same page with his teammates.
"I felt like the walkthrough was kind of that day," de Laura said. "I felt like practices after we just got better day by day."
