One team will walk out of Folsom Field on Saturday night with their first Pac-12 victory of the year. Whether that’s Colorado or Arizona will come down to the quarterbacks, says Yogi Roth of the Pac-12 Networks.
Roth will be on the call Saturday night, and he believes that a pair of mobile QBs will decide the outcome and move their team out of the Pac-12 South cellar.
“When we talk quarterbacks in the conference, we usually talk about the arm, right? We’re going to talk about the legs with these two young men. Both of them like to tote the rock,” Roth says in his weekly game preview.
“Steven Montez, he’s rushing about 11 times per game. It’s a huge part of this Colorado offense. Brandon Dawkins, [he’s] rushing about 13 times per game – a huge part of Arizona’s offense. I think when you look at this game, whoever wins, they’ll have the most efficient play from that quarterback in the run game, because their offenses start there.”
Montez has already passed for 1,272 yards and seven touchdowns this season, but he’s also thrown six interceptions. On the ground, he’s averaging 3.7 yards per carry and ranks second behind running back Phillip Lindsay in total rushing yards for the Buffaloes. That has helped propel Colorado to a 3-2 overall record, but both losses have come against conference foes.
“For Steven Montez, he’s graded as the second-highest graded Pac-12 quarterback according to PFF College, but his inconsistencies, I think he’s got to work on in this ball game,” Roth says. “This offense is only averaging 26 points per game. They’ve got the ability to explode; they just haven’t done it yet. Do they do it Saturday night? We’re going to have to tune in to to watch out, but I believe it all starts with Steven Montez with the run-pass option game. How efficiently he can operate an explosive offense with the deepest wide receiving corps in the entire Pac-12.”
Opposing Montez is Dawkins, whose Wildcats are coming off their bye week following a loss to Utah two weeks in their conference-opener. Dawkins has just 670 passing yards on the year, but has been very efficient with five touchdowns. He’s also rushed for 341 yards and six scores, leading Arizona in both statistics.
“On the other side, for Brandon Dawkins, this has been an offense that again has been inconsistent. You’re looking at them two weeks ago against Utah, one of their more complete games. Can Brandon Dawkins be the catalyst to pull it all together? [He] did it against probably right now the toughest defense in the Pac-12 Conference. They had a bye week. Can they regroup against Colorado? Another one of those tough defenses, a lot of man-to-man coverage, a physical front seven. Looking forward to watching the quick decision-making of Brandon Dawkins.”
Arizona has put up big points against inferior opponents, Northern Arizona and UTEP, but was held to 16 and 24 points against Houston and Utah respectively.
“Overall there’s a lot of storylines in this ballgame,” Roth says, “but I think it really comes down to which quarterback can be the catalyst to run the most efficient system Saturday night.”
