Arizona football: Kwesi Mashack looking to earn playing time at corner

It's been brought up over and over by Rich Rodriguez all spring.

Arizona plays 12 games in 12 weeks in 2015. No byes. No breaks. No injury recover time. Nothing.

Which means some guys that are further down on the depth chart may get thrown into the fire at some point when the inevitable injuries mount as the Wildcats have no time to recover.

The Arizona secondary will see a lot of new faces this year, and one guy at corner that might end up getting some run is sophomore Kwesi Mashack.

"He's had a pretty good spring," Rich Rodriguez said of Mashack. "He's a physical guy. I think he loves football. He's learned a lot and his head's spinning sometimes but he looks like a guy that could help us. He's gotta get in shape...but by August he should be in shape and ready to go."

"I think I've come a long way," Mashack added. "I'm starting to really get the technique down. I feel like I've progressed pretty good."

Everyone has one major weakness, and with Mashack, he says that it's his footwork and spending more time in the film room.

Coming out of high school, Mashack was a consensus top-100 cornerback in the nation. Now he finds himself below guys like Jarvis McCall, Cam Denson, DaVonte' Neal, and maybe even Devin Holiday and Devon Brewer. But he knows that he has a lot of competition.

"Now we've got more corners and there's only two spots, so you really gotta compete out there and boost the intensity," said Mashack. "You just can't think about it. You just gotta play, do what you're told, do what you're taught and you see where you end up."

One thing that's helped the now-sophomore was the tempo his high school team ran practice. Apparently Vista Murrieta is running some quick practices.

"My school kind of had their practices set up just like this one. So that was pretty good. (Arizona) was just a little faster than high school cuz everybody's fast, but it wasn't that bad. That definitely made it a lot easier to transition to college."

Mashack certainly has some room to improve and has to bring a little more to the field to earn significant playing time in 2015. But as the team goes through summer lifting and then fall practice, don't be surprised to see his name pop up as an option behind guys like Denson, Neal and McCall.