Arizona will head into practice Thursday afternoon still undecided about who will play quarterback when Saturday's game against No. 3 Oregon arrives. Head coach Jedd Fisch was asked about the starting job during his weekly Thursday press conference, and the first-year coach said he wants to continue evaluating the group during practice before making any final decision.
Fisch noted that last week's starter, second-year freshman Will Plummer, is "dinged up" coming off last weekend's loss to Northern Arizona leaving third-year freshman Gunner Cruz and sophomore USF transfer Jordan McCloud as the two healthy options this week.
Cruz and McCloud have split most of the reps during practice according to Fisch.
"We'll let the red zone day today in practice take care of itself and just kinda see how they all play," Fisch said Thursday. "Right now Jordan's playing well as is Gunner. Will's a little dinged up from the last game, so those two guys are taking a majority of the reps. We'll see how today's practice goes."
Arizona has played two quarterbacks in every game so far this season, but Fisch said his plan this week is to avoid that if possible.
"The goal would be that," he said. "If there's a certain play or two that would be for a package play, but specifically it would be wanting to play the quarterback the whole way. Have a good battle at quarterback and hopefully that quarterback the whole rest of the season. That would be the ultimate plan of attack.
"That was our goal a couple weeks ago when we went with Gunner against San Diego State, and that was our goal last week when we went with Will. Unfortunately, that didn't happen."
Cruz did not play against NAU after struggling to move the ball against the SDSU defense the previous week. Instead, the Wildcats gave Plummer the ball against the Lumberjacks he showed promise in relief against the Aztecs. However, he threw two interceptions against NAU ahead of McCloud finishing out last week's loss.
In that game the USF transfer nearly pulled UA into a tie against NAU with a late touchdown drive. A miscue on an attempted 2-point conversion prevented the Wildcats from scoring leaving the team two points short in a 21-19 loss.
McCloud has the most experience of the trio, which could come into play with the Wildcats heading into a hostile environment at Autzen Stadium this Saturday.
At this point it is unclear if Arizona will publicly announce its starting quarterback ahead of Saturday evening.
The Wildcats will kick things off against the third-ranked Ducks at 7:30 p.m. MST in Eugene.
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