Bear Down Wildcats

Tate is a 6'2", 212, Freshman quarterback from Junipero Serra HS, Inglewood, CA. One of the top recruits of the last class, Tate was simply one of the best football players in the country last year becoming a finalist for the MaxPreps Player of the Year. He was also the LA Times QB of the Year, USA Today First-Team Honors and a finalist for Mr. California Football. Tate earned all these honors by both rushing and passing for over 2000 yards each and totaling 43 TDs (26 rushing and 17 passing). He is an electrifying athlete who many of the top programs wanted as a receiver while Arizona gave him an opportunity to play QB.

Reading several of the scouting reports on Tate the common concerns were his inconsistent throwing mechanics and quickness to run instead of remaining in the pocket. Last summer he was listed at 5'11" in many articles which concerned scouts, but he looked 6'2" when I saw him at the open practice in the spring.



For me, the most important things about Tate may be the intangibles. He did all of the work to graduate early and get onto campus for the spring semester despite being young for his class ( He was 17 at the beginning of the summer and I am not sure when his birthday is). Also, he appeared to be the top recruiter in his class. Multiple articles mentioned Tate working with the southern California football players and guys on the camp circuit to convince them to play for Arizona. Tate is also mature for his age telling SI,

Tate also picked Arizona because of the campus culture. “I knew I wanted to pick my college based on how I would feel if I didn’t play football,” he says. “So how I would feel if I was just a regular student or if I got hurt?”

If it is not clear, I really like Tate as a player and as a young man from what I have read. The big question is, will he see the field this year? He is clearly behind Anu and Dawkins at running the offense, but has already shown he has the strongest arm and may be the best runner of the 3. I have made it clear in the quarterback thread I would like to see specific packages to let Tate execute the read option and go all Jerrard Randall on opposing defenses, but I don't think Coach Rod will skip over Dawkins to give Tate live action. Many coaches would also try to get Tate on the field at least as a receiver, but Coach Rod made it clear this week that Tate has one job and that is to learn the QB position. Where does that leave us? I am not sure we will get a chance to see Tate except in clean up time unless the coaches think our offense is stagnating and they are desperate to get another offensive playmaker on the field.




No. 14
Longest kickoff return: 100 yards, Chris McAlister, vs. UCLA, Nov. 16, 1996; vs. Hawaii, Sept. 3, 1998; Travis Cobb, vs. Iowa, Sept. 18, 2010

I am so excited to see this kid on the field, but I'm fearful that he'll never get a shot.

He's only working out as QB, so I agree, he may never see the field, ever with Burmeister coming in next year.

Chicat wrote:I am so excited to see this kid on the field, but I'm fearful that he'll never get a shot.

He's to good of an athlete. He'll play somewhere.

Burmeister wouldn't play ahead of Tate next year. RR doesn't jump QBs in any earlier than he has to. It's not about ability, it's about understanding the offense. That's why Denker started in '13 while Solomon redshirted. Other variables include the health of Solomon and Dawkins. If Solomon was out at all next year, Dawkins and Tate are 1-2 (or flip them if Tate shows something special, including an excellent grasp of the offense.)

I have talked to a couple guys who followed Tate closely in high school and they have all told me the same thing...little to no chance he plays much QB for us as he will never have the discipline Rich Rod wants in the position. Very strong athlete though and his future will be at WR.

tgrumpy2 wrote:

Chicat wrote:I am so excited to see this kid on the field, but I'm fearful that he'll never get a shot.

He's to good of an athlete. He'll play somewhere.

I'm not a football guy, so am always curious why schools recruit a position called "athlete". It seems to me that "athletes" do everything pretty good, but don't do anything specific extremely well. Can anyone say that Davonte' Neal is in the upper half of PAC corners?

How about Cam Denson at WR? Thought Cam had some pretty good games at DB.

Trucking guys and throwing TDs. Bear Down young fella!

His play makes Solomon 3rd string next season

Should be the starter from here on out this season

3goggles wrote:Should be the starter from here on out this season

Agree

Newportcat wrote:I have talked to a couple guys who followed Tate closely in high school and they have all told me the same thing...little to no chance he plays much QB for us as he will never have the discipline Rich Rod wants in the position. Very strong athlete though and his future will be at WR.

Those guys seem to be full of shit haha

Future is now

Newportcat wrote:I have talked to a couple guys who followed Tate closely in high school and they have all told me the same thing...little to no chance he plays much QB for us as he will never have the discipline Rich Rod wants in the position. Very strong athlete though and his future will be at WR.

Oh hai

Legion of Boom.

Haha, he was really good. His throwing was much better than I expected. Granted he just had throws to the flat or vertical routes but he looked good.

Newports research was not good, shocker I know. He should start the rest of the year

Hell, with either him or a healthy Dawkins (once he was hurting the run threat was gone), AZ will put up some points. I understand why they didn't put him in earlier; you don't burn a redshirt on a guy like that unless you really have to. They figured out that yes, they really had to, and now they've got QB controversy galore once everyone is healthy.

I was impressed. First playing time and it's at the rose bowl against a really good defense with no running back. He looks to have a strong arm and has decent touch. Man they way he was trucking ucla starters and he is only 17 gives you some decent hope. That first drive had him gassed, will need to get that conditioning up.

My guess is that RR figures Anu is out for significant time and Dawkins will need 2-3 weeks.

Someone is transferring at the end of the year. Just not sure who (well probably Anu)

Sucks for Solomon, ending up 3rd string after starting the season.

Just a matter of time before Tate goes down too though.

He looked great. True freshman. Did nice work. Exceeded expectations, and "trucked" some UCLA defenders.

Now, it seems the Cats are having an issue keeping QBs healthy. Nevertheless, Tate has asserted himself as a candidate for the job. As long as he's healthy. And in shape--he did look winded at times.

Tate provided a ray of sunshine in an abysmally powder blue second half.

I'm reading all of this and I'm surprised no one has come up with a few things. First of all some folks think RR has opened up a can of worms now that we all know how talented that kid is. I for one have no problem with that. A team that has three QBs that talented, I'm not seeing a problem with it this year. Second of all Anu can't transfer unless he gets a medical redshirt year for this year or he goes to a smaller school. Otherwise he'll have to sit out a year. The one thing that isn't crossing anyone's mind is we have a shortage of running backs right now. At least healthy ones. So get Dawkins past his bruised ribs and tell Mr. Tate he's a running back the rest of the year or at least until Wilson gets well which is probably the rest of the year. Any thoughts on Tate temporarily changing positions?

Well its a position he has never played so there is that. We put Samaje back there but I don't remember ever using him in the read option.

I think you also run the risk of having to live with Werlinger if both Dawkins and Tate get hurt which is very possible given our history

Werlinger should never see the field again. 0-5 passing and -4 yards rushing.

So azcat49 is right, don't risk injury to Tate when we need to him to be ready. Solomon is extremely fragile, and too soon to tell about Dawkins.

Yep Merk, Werlinger is one of the raise the team GPA kind of guys. He wouldn't start at Pima

Sounds familiar.

That play was sweet. He was looking to lower the boom on that guy. Mission accomplished.

Chicat wrote:That play was sweet. He was looking to lower the boom on that guy. Mission accomplished.

He looked like Cam Newton on that play.

Dude is a manimal. Must start against Utah this week IMO.

I'm just worried that he's going to get himself injured if he continues to run like that. But dude can ball. So what do I know?

He looked good against us. He also looked like he's gained 30 pounds since high school though it didn't seen to slow him down at all. I'm guessing that was part of the need for a RS year?

The big thing with the redshirt year is that RichRod doesn't like to play true freshman quarterbacks. The offense takes a while to learn; the amount of on the fly reads and decisions the QB has to make in this scheme are insane. This is why Denker started in '13 instead of Solomon, who had a lot more talent. RR said they ran a simplified offensive package with Tate in the game.

azpenguin wrote:The big thing with the redshirt year is that RichRod doesn't like to play true freshman quarterbacks. The offense takes a while to learn; the amount of on the fly reads and decisions the QB has to make in this scheme are insane. This is why Denker started in '13 instead of Solomon, who had a lot more talent. RR said they ran a simplified offensive package with Tate in the game.

I think RichRod learned from the Tate Forcier experiment at UM. Denard Robinson also played as a true freshman at UM the same year and neither one did all that well, except against lower competition.

Merkin wrote:

azpenguin wrote:The big thing with the redshirt year is that RichRod doesn't like to play true freshman quarterbacks. The offense takes a while to learn; the amount of on the fly reads and decisions the QB has to make in this scheme are insane. This is why Denker started in '13 instead of Solomon, who had a lot more talent. RR said they ran a simplified offensive package with Tate in the game.

I think RichRod learned from the Tate Forcier experiment at UM. Denard Robinson also played as a true freshman at UM the same year and neither one did all that well, except against lower competition.

Both of those QB did well under RR at Michigan. DR was clearly the better QB than TF. It just like what were seeing at Arizona.

I was reading azdesertswan and they were saying Tate was already thinking about transferring before they burned his redshirt last week. Am I the only one that was shocked by this?

3goggles wrote:I was reading azdesertswan and they were saying Tate was already thinking about transferring before they burned his redshirt last week. Am I the only one that was shocked by this?

Speculation or actual sources? Pretty ridiculous if someone wanted to transfer 3 games into their freshman season.

I think that rumor was based on twitter posts by KT and associates that he wasn't happy that he was gonna be redshirted and not play this year.

KT wasn't going to be given a shot to play QB at any other Power-5 school, so transferring doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Well, everyone thought he was gonna de-commit from AZ too based on his Twitter posts. If he was thinking about transferring, you'd know about it for sure when the school reports that he's transferring. Other than that... you often can't read much into it.