Arizona football: Anu Solomon transferring to Baylor

We know where the Arizona quarterback is going now

At the end of the fall semester, Anu Solomon announced that he would be transferring away from Arizona.

According to 247Sports, that destination is Baylor. Solomon will be eligible immediately as a graduate transfer.

The Arizona Wildcats gave Solomon the reigns to the offense as a redshirt freshman in 2014. He hit the ground running, breaking school records in his first collegiate game, which came against his hometown UNLV Rebels.

Solomon suffered an ankle injury in the second half of that season, which hurt his overall performance, but the Wildcats still won the Pac-12 South, made the Fiesta Bowl, and put up the school’s third-ever ten-win season.

In his second season as the team’s starting quarterback, things started out fine, leading to an ESPN College GameDay appearance before the team’s showdown with the UCLA Bruins in Tucson.

Anu suffered a concussion in that game, and combined with the injury to Scooby Wright III, Arizona hit freefall mode, and Solomon never regained his old form.

He suffered another nasty concussion against Utah, and would miss the ASU game in Tempe. Jerrard Randall got the start, but eventually gave way to Brandon Dawkins.

Throughout the 2016 offseason, Arizona’s coaches kept saying how close the quarterback battle was. But it was Solomon that won the job out of camp, and only Solomon played against BYU in the 2016 opener, even as the offense struggled to move the ball throughout the night.

The next week though, when Arizona was practicing in a wet Arizona Stadium, Solomon suffered a knee injury when he was run into by another member of the offense. When he eventually returned to the field, he didn’t look anything like the quarterback we saw at the beginning of the 2014 season.

Last season, the Baylor Bears had four quarterbacks on their roster, three of them freshmen. Seth Russell was a senior, but suffered a season-ending ankle injury. He has now been invited to the NFL Combine. True freshman Zach Smith played in ten games, completed 116 of his 196 pass attempts for 1,526 yards, 13 touchdowns, and seven interceptions.

After all of the scandals at Baylor, former Temple coach Matt Rhule is now in charge there, and perhaps he will be turning to Solomon as a one-year option while putting his mark on the football program. The Bears play Liberty, UTSA, and Duke in their non-conference games next year.

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