Open competition

Matadors have group of young but athletic QBs vying for starting job

A year ago, Arizona Western was loaded at the quarterback position.

The Matadors had two signal callers — redshirt sophomore Bryce Perkins and true freshman Jack Colletto — who were Division I-caliber. Perkins, a transfer from Arizona State, won the starting job, and played well enough to garner a scholarship from Virginia. Colletto was used in certain packages, and the hope was that he’d return as the Matadors’ starter in 2018.

But Colletto signed with Oregon State in February, leaving AWC’s 2018 starting job wide open.

The group vying for that job consists of three true freshmen, one Division I transfer who was listed as a wide receiver at Georgia, and just one returner from last year’s Matadors (Bailey Arvizo of Cibola). “I think what it comes down to is going to be the guy who makes the least mistakes,” Minnick said Friday after AWC’s third official practice of the season. Through the first half-week of practice, Minnick said two players — freshmen El Julian Jordan and Jacquez Carter — have established themselves as the leaders in the quarterback race, though he acknowledged that the situation remains fluid with the team in no rush to name a starter with the season opener still 19 days away.

Jordan (6-3, 230) comes to Yuma from Detroit Central High School in Michigan, where he was rated as a three-star prospect by 247 Sports. Jordan boasted offers from several Mid-American Conference programs, and verbally committed to Western Michigan last year, but wound up having to go the juniorcollege route after not qualifying academically.

As a high school senior, Jordan threw for 2,873 yards and 27 touchdowns, to go along with 11 rushing touchdowns.

Carter (6-2, 180), meanwhile, is a one-time University of Massachusetts commit out of Naples, Fla., and finds himself at AWC for a different reason than Jordan. UMass wanted Carter to play cornerback, despite the fact that he never played on the defensive side of the ball in high school. That was a move Carter was unwilling to make, so he re-opened his recruitment and eventually settled on AWC — with the hope of parlaying a successful junior-college season into a Division I quarterback offer.

The other newcomers at quarterback