To get ready for the upcoming Arizona football season, All Sports Tucson offers a countdown, which will include history notes and a look ahead to the season — a good way to keep Arizona football on the mind in the summer months leading up to fall camp in early August and then kickoff against New Mexico on Aug. 31 in the start of the Brent Brennan era.
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS PREVIOUS DAYS IN THE COUNTDOWN
A LOOK BACK — NO. 28 STEVE McLAUGHLIN
With it being the 28th day until kickoff between the Lobos and Wildcats, the best player to wear No. 28 for Arizona is placekicker Steve McLaughlin, a Sahuaro graduate who played at Arizona from 1991 to 1994. He won the Lou Groza Award, given to the nation’s top kicker, as a senior. McLaughlin converted 23 of 29 attempts as a senior, when he made seven field-goal attempts from at least 47 yards. In his final regular-season game, he made a key 48-yard field-goal attempt just before halftime in Arizona’s 28-27 victory over Arizona State, which saw its kicker, Jon Baker, miss from 47 yards in the final minute. McLaughlin was drafted in the third round by the St. Louis Rams in 1995 but did not make it to the end of his rookie season. He tried to play in the NFL over the next two years but wound up in the Arena Football League for eight years. McLaughlin, who fronted a college band called Pet the Fish with friend and Arizona linebacker Joe Lohmeier, also a Sahuaro alum, continued to be serious about music, releasing a 2009 album entitled “No More Record Stores.” He now lives in Roswell, Ga., and is a Hewlett-Packard supplies partner business manager. He has been based out of Atlanta over the last 10 years, mostly working as an executive with Hewlett-Packard.
NO. 28 IN 2024 — RB ANTHONY WILHITE
Wilhite, 5-foot-11 and 183 pounds, is a Salpointe graduate who is a preferred walk-on with the Arizona program after a freshman year at Ottawa (Arizona). He did not make an appearance in one season at Ottawa last season. At Salpointe, he rushed for 2,058 yards and 24 touchdowns over three seasons (32 games) on varsity. He averaged a career-best 112.5 yards per game during senior season in 2021. He rushed for 100-plus yards during seven games in final season at Salpointe.
NOTE
Noah Fifita is the identifiable starter for Arizona at the most important position — quarterback. Who’s his backup if his job is complete at the end of the game with Arizona well ahead, if he has to come out for a play, or God forbid, he gets injured? The backups include Cole Tannebaum, Brayden Dorman and transfers Anthony Garcia from San Jose State and Adam Damante from NAU. Arizona coaches have given them equal reps through the first three days of fall camp. Former Scottsdale Saguaro quarterback Mason Bray, son of late Arizona great Heath Bray, is also a preferred walk-on with the Wildcats.
THEY SAID IT
“We’ve got so many of them that were spacing out reps. We’re slowing down our decisions because we’re not going to have an opportunity to go down the road and go, ‘Oh man, we picked the wrong one’ and re-train another one. There is going to come a day here really soon where we’ve got to start making some decisions, and then we’re just going to have to go with some guys. You can’t give the backup quarterback enough reps, but you can’t divide those reps between other people.” — Arizona offensive coordinator Dino Babers about the backup quarterback situation.
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon. He became an educator in 2016 and is presently a special education teacher at Sunnyside High School in the Sunnyside Unified School District.
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