Washington State vs. Arizona: The Wildcats' receivers scored the best in this week's position grades

It was not a good day for the Wildcats

As always, we have graded each position group in the Arizona Wildcats' latest game, and let's just say their report card was not pretty this week after the loss to the Washington State Cougars.

Quarterbacks

Anu Solomon wasn't bad, but he wasn't great either. He had to run for his life a few times, but was still able to hit most of his throws. The problem with Solomon is that he can't string together a complete drive. A few painful overthrows here and there have become the usual for Solomon. Jerrard Randall sparked the offense with a big run on his touch of the game, and then led a sweet touchdown drive to put Arizona within three points with about 8 minutes to go in the game. The comeback fell short, but is there going to be a quarterback controversy going forward? We shall see.

Overall Grade: C

Running backs

Arizona didn't have much a rushing attack, and didn't need very many carries to figure it out. Baker had 11 carries for 22 yards and got a bulk of the carries, as Wilson only had three carries in the game. But it wasn't the running backs who had most of the rushing yards, it was Jerrard Randall (105 yards), Anu Solomon (24) and Samajie Grant (21) who led the way for rushing.

Jared Baker did have yet another three-touchdown game, so it's good to see the senior stepping up with Nick Wilson out.

Overall Grade: D

Receivers

Cayleb Jones finally looked like the Cayleb Jones that were expecting to see at the beginning of the season. He managed to pull in eight passes for 131 yards and a touchdown.

Solomon was able to spread the wealth, and the receivers were catching all that they could. Washington State didn't have a tremendous amount of coverage, which allowed the receivers to get their targets. Then Jerrard Randall came in and was much more accurate than usual, which helped the receivers perform the way they did.

Overall Grade: B

Offensive line

Cayman Bundage's issues snapping the ball re-emerged today, and he was later benched for Zach Hemmila. The pass protection wasn't adequate as Anu Solomon also had to scramble for his life a few times and give us his best Johnny Football impersonation. The o-line also struggled to create running lanes, which is something they should be able to do against Washington State. In the end it was just a rough day for the offensive line.

Overall Grade: D

Defensive line

The defensive line had an odd look for most of the game. Jack Banda and Reggie Gilbert were the defensive ends, but DeAndre' Miller also came in as a down lineman. Jeff Worthy came in and caused a fumble, so that was nice. He was the lone defensive lineman to get pressure on Falk today, so for that, we thank you, Worthy. He finished with two sacks.

Aside from that, however, Arizona wasn't getting much pressure. Falk had a good amount of time on every play, regardless if the Wildcats sent some extra rushers.

Overall Grade: D+

Linebackers

There really weren't any linebackers today. Paul Magloire was more of a defensive back, and DeAndre' Miller was playing up on the line. Jake Matthews was essentially the lone linebacker of the group, and he hardly saw the field. The middle was wide open, and it was probably because everyone was playing so far back.

Anthony Lopez and Magloire were technically playing linebacker, and sitting back in the zone coverage. The middle of the field was wide open all day long, and that allowed Luke Falk to get his passing attack going.

Overall Grade: D

Secondary

The secondary was scrambling for depth. Kwesi Mashack, Jace Whittaker, DaVonte' Neal, and Cam Denson all rotated at corner, with Jamar Allah, Will Parks and Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles in the safety positions. Throw in a little Carter Hehr action and this was a hodgepodge secondary.

There really wasn't much the secondary could do. Luke Falk was picking apart the defense, moving the ball all across the field. You knew that Arizona would struggle against the pass, it was just a matter of how many stops Arizona could pull off. Unfortunately, they didn't get too many.

Overall Grade: F

Special Teams

Washington State's special teams have been notoriously bad, especially when it comes to defending punt returns. We saw that clearly here, as Nate Phillips took a punt to the house for 69 yards to tie the game at 14.

A few drives later, Shun Brown took a kick from out of the end zone and ended up fumbling the ball, with Wazzu recovering. This resulted in seven, which put the Cougars up 28-14. That was pretty much the play the changed the game for Arizona.

Overall Grade: B-

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