Arizona football: Jared Baker powering offense with big play threat

Jared Baker is now coming off two consecutive 100-yard games, making the most of his senior season

Jared Baker has come a long way to this point, finally emerging as a true home-run threat for the Arizona Wildcats offense.

His entire career, he has embraced the role of a backup, and carries the load when his number is called. After suffering an ACL tear his sophomore season vs. Arizona State, he's done everything that the coaches have asked him to do.

Baker had never seen more than 27 carries in a season over the course of his first three years at Arizona. This season, he has almost surpassed his career carries (72), with 60 rushing attempts thus far in 2015. This past week, he had 23 carries vs. the Colorado Buffaloes, powering the offense with 207 yards on the ground.

Although Nick Wilson seems to be an irreplaceable piece to this offense, Jared Baker has been able to come up big when Wilson is out nursing an injury.

It started last year, when we saw Baker take over against USC, scoring 21 of Arizona's 26 points, accounting for 93 yards on offense.

This season, he's been used sparingly throughout the first half of the schedule, but has now strung together two consecutive 100-yard performances vs. Oregon State and Colorado.

Oregon State allowed all of the running backs to get in on the action, but Baker took advantage of his touches, totaling 123 yards on just 10 carries. He had a big-time run down the middle of the field for 73 yards, but got tracked down before crossing the goal line.

Baker got the start for Arizona this past weekend in Boulder, with Nick Wilson nursing a foot injury. This time, he carried the ball 23 times as the primary back. Baker got things going early for Arizona, busting out a 79 yard touchdown run to the house. He didn't score again until the 4th quarter, but took one the distance from 45 yards on a Jerrard Randall read option.

His production didn't stop in the running attack. He scored on a wheel route from 25 yards out, giving him three scores on the day, and 247 yards of total offense.

He's technically been a co-starter on the offense all year long, but his carries didn't reflect that up until about two weeks ago. Now averaging 7.8 yards a carry, Baker has become a vital piece to the offense, and has asserted himself as a true work horse in the stable of running backs.

from Arizona Desert Swarm - All Posts http://ift.tt/1OSZptR
via IFTTT