Arizona Wildcats will have to adjust to quirk in 2015 football schedule

Take a look at the Arizona Wildcats’ 2015 football schedule.

On it you will see non-conference matchups with UTSA (on a Thursday), along with Nevada and Northern Arizona. They also have conference matchups against their traditional Pac-12 South opponents as well as Pac-12 North representatives Stanford, Oregon State and Washington.

One thing you won’t see is a week off in between all of those games.

Oh, the Wildcats have a bye week scheduled, but it is for the weekend of November 28. The following week would be the Pac-12 Championship Game. The previous 12 are the entirety of Arizona’s schedule.

Twelve consecutive games without a week off.

“This is the first time in almost 30 years of coaching that we’ve had 12 straight games and no open dates,” Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez said Thursday during a Pac-12 coaches teleconference to recap spring football. “That’s something different for all of us, so we’re going to talk about it during the summer, we’re certainly going to plan our way in camp to make sure our guys are going to be fresh.

“It’s going to be a difficult thing to deal with, but at least we know what we have to deal with. Now we have to plan accordingly.”

Last season, Arizona had a pair of bye weeks — one in the fifth week of the season and the other in the eighth. The Wildcats followed each week off with a victory. Maybe that was because of the extra rest, or maybe it was just the opponent/having a good day.

Regardless, not having that week off during the season to help get over nagging injuries or recover from a more severe issue does present some challenges.

Rodriguez said the team has already cut back on practice time and reps because of the number of plays his team is on the field for every game, but this scheduling quirk means they’ll have to adjust even more.

“Now, with no open dates at all to recover from, we’ve got to have a good plan in August camp, we’ve obviously got to come into camp in shape because we don’t have time to work our kinks out, so to speak,” he said. “And then we’ve got to get a whole bunch of guys ready to play because there’s just going to be a tough thing, week in and week out, to try and stay healthy and fresh.”

Rodriguez’s team is coming off a season in which it went 10-4, won the Territorial Cup over ASU as well as the Pac-12 South, and also earned a Fiesta Bowl berth.