Arizona likely to play two quarterbacks vs. San Diego State, will get boost from Jamarye Joiner and maybe Jordan Morgan

The Arizona Wildcats aren’t ready to fully commit to Gunner Cruz as their starting quarterback, as head coach Jedd Fisch said Thursday that he envisions Will Plummer seeing some action in Saturday’s home opener vs. San Diego State.

“I think we’ll probably have a spot for Will to play a little bit,” Fisch said. “I think there’s some value to be able to sit a series and look to see what’s going on defensively, have a deep breath and say, okay, ‘I see why this play was called.’”

Both quarterbacks saw the field against BYU, too, but Cruz was clearly the primary option. He played all but nine snaps and completed 34 of 45 passes for 336 yards, a touchdown and an interception, improving as the game wore on.

“He did a lot of things that were pretty good, but there were some things that we can improve upon,” Fisch said after the game. “We certainly can’t take four sacks. Two knocked us out of field goal range, two out of possible go-for-it situations. We can’t do that. We had a couple of guys open in the end zone, ended up having a misread here, a misread there, which we need to improve upon. But you want to talk about a kid that battled. I mean, this guy’s got four years of football left in him, and he battled his tail off...and this is not easy. Going to a neutral site with 50-something thousand people in an NFL stadium ... and be able to go down and still battle and battle and battle, I feel really, really good about the way Gunner played.”

Plummer played two series and completed two of three pass attempts for nine yards.

Jamarye Joiner to boost passing game—and maybe Jordan Morgan too?

Fisch said he expects wide receiver Jamarye Joiner (foot) to debut Saturday and have a role in the passing game. Fisch said he has practiced every day this week after missing the BYU game.

“We’ve just been doing some load management, keep an eye on him and he looked fantastic, so I would expect him to have some plays in the game,” Fisch said. “He’s another threat out there. It’ll be good to get another vertical threat on the field.”

As for left tackle Jordan Morgan...

“Jordan got back on the field yesterday, and we’re hopeful that he’ll be able to play on Saturday night,” Fisch said.