Arizona healthy heading into season opener
Arizona battled injuries throughout fall camp, but it appears that the Wildcats will be healthy for the season opener against BYU.
“We are in a good spot in terms of everybody should be practicing, I believe, this week,” Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch said. “Out for the season because of injuries? No, not that I know of right now. I’d be surprised, other than Jamarye Joiner, who’s got a couple of weeks left, I think that we’re gonna have everybody.”
The defensive line was a concern due to the fact that Arizona often had two or three injured linemen in addition to struggling to keep Kenny Hebert healthy at linebacker as well.
“I feel good about Jalen (Harris) and Mo (Diallo), and then Tre (Mason), JB (Brown), Kyon (Barrs) and Paris (Shand) all being available, plus other guys may get opportunities to get certain reps in there as well,” Fisch said. Tank (Wilson) is another one.
“At linebacker, you’ve got Tre (Hayward), you’ve got (Anthony) Pandy, Jerry (Roberts), Kenny (Hebert) and Rashie (Hodge) and Malik (Reed). They’ll be rotating in different packages based on what we’re trying to get done defensively, but I would assume we’ll see all six of those backers and all seven or eight of the defensive linemen playing.”
The bigger concern as far as health may be Covid-19 and the program continues to take all the necessary precautions.
“We’re certainly very COVID-aware as a program,” Fisch said. “As you know, we made vaccinations an enormous priority. We were able to get 100 percent vaccinated with no exceptions. We didn’t have any exceptions. Every player on our team, every coach, every person that works in our building.
“Then on top of it, we also understand that there’s breakthrough cases and that COVID is the real deal, that we have to make sure that we don’t lose guys. We let them know that every day is a game, every day it’s a competition.
“Friday night, you’re competing, you’re competing against BYU, you’re competing against the rest of the country. Are they going to get COVID? Are you going to get COVID? Are you going to be able to avoid getting sick? Are you going to be able to avoid missing time?
“With that comes every decision you make. It’s really important for us to make smart decisions and wise decisions so we don’t run into a problem, or we lose guys because of a Friday night or Saturday night out and socialize with people that have COVID.”
Fisch will also make sure that the team is careful once it arrives in Vegas.
“They can interact with their team, we’re pretty strict about that,” Fisch said. “I don’t know if there’s other rules, outside of our team rules, but our team rules don’t go past much interaction with anyone else.
“They’ll be able to see their parents after the game. We’ll talk about that more with the team. Most of our time will be spent as a team, isolated from almost everyone else.”
