The Arizona Wildcats began spring practice on Wednesday, and there were very few surprises.
The main injury to note is to Jarvis McCall. Rich Rodriguez said after practice that it's a groin strain, and that he should be back practicing sometime in the next week. Cam Denson definitely looked like the best corner out there, and DaVonte' Neal showed that he has some skills that may develop into a potentially great defender.
Nate Phillips was back after his foot injury, and said that he felt good. "I haven't done anything for like three and a half or four months, so it was definitely good to be back."
"I did some with the trainers, but nothing compares to being out here, running routes and plays as fast as we do," Phillips said of his conditioning. "But we'll get there. It'll probably take a couple weeks, but after spring break it should be pretty much back to normal."
One thing that also stood out was Anu Solomon's physique. He looks a lot more athletic, and he set the new weight room record for bench press by a quarterback this month.
"I felt good. I felt way better than I did the last six weeks of our season," Solomon said afterwards. "Obviously putting more emphasis on my pocket presence, my accuracy, my leadership and obviously clock management."
The quarterback also said he recently ran a 4.6 40.
The last thing that stood out was that the team was repping four guys at tight end. Rodriguez certainly has his mind set on trying to add a true tight end into the offense in 2015.
"Right now it's hard to evaluate them," Rodriguez said. "We have four tight ends where we didn't have any true tight ends last year. Austin Hill did a great job filling in but we've got four now that we like with the body type. Josh Kern has gotten bigger and has shown us some things, so it's going to allow us to do some of the things we want to do with tight end sets."