Jedd Fisch frustrated by Arizona’s quarterback competition

The Arizona Wildcats are one week into preseason practice and head coach Jedd Fisch is frustrated by the quarterback competition so far. There has been little, if any, separation between Gunner Cruz, Will Plummer and Jordan McCloud.

“I would love to say that I have a great feel for the leaderboard and exactly where we’re at. I keep telling these guys it’s like Saturday in the PGA. There’s a moving day and one of these days we have to separate ourselves,” Fisch said after Friday’s practice. “We can’t just rotate who has the best day that day. ... We’ve gotta make more plays.”

Fisch is not into gamesmanship. He wants to declare a starter as soon as possible so that he can divide the practice reps accordingly. Right now, the three QBs are receiving about the same, though Cruz seems to be getting the most run with the first-string.

“Your starting quarterback is only getting 33 percent of the reps, think of it that way,” Fisch said. “We just can’t keep having that.”

Fisch listed the strengths and weaknesses of each quarterback in camp so far.

“Gunner has a big arm and then misses the ball down the field or is late watching it,” he said. “Will has a very accurate throwing motion, very clean, but we’ve got to be cleaner at the line of scrimmage. Jordan, we’ve got to make more throws down the field, we’ve got to complete more throws down the field, we can’t leave stuff always inside. You can’t miss outside-the-number throws inside. If you do that, it’s interceptions and it’s interceptions for touchdowns. So we’ve got to find the guy that’s going to make the least amount of mistakes. That will be the key right now.”

The Wildcats will practice again Saturday, then scrimmage Sunday under the lights at Arizona Stadium, which will be open to the public. The game-like setting could be exactly what the quarterback room needs right now.

“We need these next couple days to evaluate our team in pads the way we did last night,” Fisch said. “We gotta figure out our quarterback position and who’s going to become our starter.”