Injury Updates, Thoughts on Khalil Tate, and More from Wednesday's Practice

The prep for Arizona has begun in earnest, and even though Khalil Tate may not play Saturday, Tim DeRuyter and the Cal defense are prepping for him nonetheless.

"We've seen (Rhett) Rodriguez in the back of some of the games," DeRuyter said, "he's an athletic guy who can run their offense, I think coach Sumlin's being coy I'm guessing. We're preparing to see Khalil."

"We're assuming that he's playing," Wilcox said.

That was one of the main points that DeRuyter and Justin Wilcox stressed during their practice, as memories of Tate burning the Cal defense a year ago in a 45-44 Arizona win still remain strong. Though Tate hasn't lived up to the preseason hype, there's still a strong belief from the Cal staff that he can show what he did a year ago. Or at least they're preparing like it.

"You have to plan for a guy that can do both things," DeRuyter said. "He has a very strong arm and he does a good job of extending plays.That's one of our emphases this week, when he breaks out and extends plays, they do a nice job of converting routes and he can throw it a mile. So you've got to do a nice job of containing him and on the back end, staying with guys and knowing you'll have to cover awhile."

For Wilcox, it's about them coming a ways since their season opening loss to BYU.

"I think if you look at their first game until now, the development, their offense, the quarterback, they give you lot of issues whether it's RPOs or dropback pass, formations, tempo, the motions," Wilcox said, "they do a lot of different things and they're well coached."

It's also a team with bigger receivers that they'll have to deal with in Shun Brown and Shawn Poindexter (a 6'5" behemoth) in particular.

"Good size, got some playmakers," Wilcox said, "some people call them 50/50 balls, but they're not 50/50 with them, they go up and take the ball."

Other Notes

- Wilcox noted that RB Marcel Dancy is expected to be back, and he was practicing today, but RB Derrick Clark and OL Henry Bazakas are both out for the year with lower body injuries

- DeRuyter compared RB JJ Taylor to Donnel Pumphrey, as smaller players that get behind their pads surprisingly well, as Taylor is 5'6"

- DeRuyter does have a bit of a connection to Arizona, as his daughter Christina is the director of On-Campus Recruiting in Tucson.

"She's excited because we'll have a lot of family out there," DeRuyter said, "and I told her, 'unfortunately (for you), your mom's going to be wearing Cal gear, because we're not gonna survive on your paycheck,' but it'll be great to see her. She's doing a great job with coach Sumlin, and I really appreciate coach Sumlin giving a young lady an opportunity in football to help their school. This week makes it a little bit tougher."

- The two QB system is looking to continue for now, something Wilcox said Monday

"We always look at it through the lens of 'what's going to help our team,'" Wilcox said, "those two guys are doing a good job, we can't turn the ball over like we did a week ago, and they'll learn from that, but both of them have really good attitudes about it and both are making progress as players."

- Cal's lost 13 straight Pac-12 road games. Justin Wilcox noted that that's the last thing on their mind.

"We're not chasing ghosts," Wilcox said, "we're just trying to play better. If we prepare well and go down and play well, we're not cursed, we don't need to get involved in any witchcraft or anything like that, we just need to go play better."

- Wilcox also touched on Colin Schooler and the U of A defense

"A real active player, and they get in and out of stuff, they mix it up," Wilcox said, "real active player, plays downhill, gets a lot of run-through, a lot of tackle for losses (Schooler has 10.5 so far), they've got some young linebackers, guys that are making plays on the ball on the back end, and some big bodies up front. They've moved some guys around, from the interior to end, and they'll give you some heavier guys at end to give you some on your inside zones and your outside counters, it gives you some issues there."