I’m running through the 10 most intriguing players in the Pac-12 this season. This isn’t a list of the most important players or the best — we’ve already done that. Instead, it’s a look at which players across the league have the widest-ranging potential. Who can swing the league with a strong campaign? Which players have the potential to flip a win or two their team’s way? Here’s the group so far:

No. 10 Stanford offensive line

No. 9 Washington’s Zion Tupuola-Fetui

No. 8 Oregon’s Justin Flowe

No. 7 USC’s Calen Bullock

*****

No. 6 Jacob Cowing, Arizona wide receiver

“Our vertical pass game has to be better,” Arizona wideout coach Kevin Cummings says with a sense of urgency. “That’s one of our goals as a staff.”

Last season, the Wildcats threw the football 444 times. Of all those passes, only 27 of them went for 20 yards or more. That explosive pass play rate (6.1%) was the worst of any FBS team. 

Quarterback Will Plummer simply tested defenses deep — so, passes that traveled at least 20 yards in the air; tracked by PFF — on 13.9% of his pass attempts. Among the 15 Pac-12 quarterbacks who attempted at least 10 passes, that was the fifth-lowest rate. 

Gunner Cruz was at 5.3%. 

Jordan McCloud was at 4.1%. 

In total, there were 45 attempts between the three quarterbacks. Ten completions. Six interceptions. 

Jayden de Laura had 63 attempts on his own — the most in the Pac-12 and ninth-most among Power Five throwers. 

Arizona identified a weakness, then mapped out a plan to address it. The Wildcats went out and plucked de Laura from the transfer portal a year after he won the Pac-12’s Freshman Offensive Player of the Year award. 

Pretty good. 

But it takes two to tango… rather, to play pitch and catch… and Arizona didn’t just go out to snag an upgrade at quarterback. It also went out into the portal and grabbed one of the best available wide receivers in all of college football in former UTEP wideout Jacob Cowing. 

A year ago, Cowing put up 1,367 yards and seven touchdowns on just 69 receptions. At the FBS level, 39 receivers topped 1,000 yards last year. Only seven did it on fewer receptions than Cowing, and none of those guys had more yardage. 

Cowing’s 3.8 yards gained per route run was the second-best mark among qualified receivers, behind only Jaxon Smith-Njigba at Ohio State. The 5-foot-11 junior from Maricopa, Arizona, was a consistent and every-down kind of threat from the slot for the Miners.

“Jacob Cowing was the biggest get of the offseason for the football team,” coach Jedd Fisch said, per The Arizona Daily Star’s Michael Lev. 

Almost a fourth of Cowing’s total targets last season (24.3%) came on passes thrown 20 or more yards downfield. And he was that efficient with his snaps, in terms of production. 

“The thing I like about him is there are not many limitations to his game,” Cummings said. “He can go vertical, he can win man-to-man, and he’s got the smarts and the savviness to adjust to some of that stuff in the slot — some of those zone coverages, slip defenders, and different things like that. It’s on us as a staff to put him in as many different spots as we can to use those skillsets. 

“For him, he’s just going out there and playing wherever we line him up. He’s done a great job of figuring out where he needs to be and how to run it.”

Arizona added talent to the receiver corps this offseason, not just in the form of Cowing. But Cowing’s ability is undoubtedly going to make things easier for everyone else. The trend in recent years has been for college football teams to drop their best receiver into the slot and let defenses figure out what they want to give up in order to match up.

Cowing will be in the slot. He’ll move around, too — he told reporters he’s played outside and in the backfield, and has a role on sweeps — but he’ll be dangerous in the slot. 

The beauty of the talent Arizona added this offseason, Cummings says, is they’re all “so damn smart.” Cowing can do a bunch of things. 

Coming out of high school, UTEP was Cowing’s only scholarship offer at the FBS level. When he decided to enter the transfer portal following the 2021 season, things had changed in a big way.

“I think he could’ve called up just about anybody and said, ‘I want to come,’ and they would have taken him,” Fisch told The Athletic. “He’s not a 2-star player anymore, that I do know.”

Certainly not.

Though, there’s still a bit of a bias working against Group of Five players who make the jump to the Power Five. Most don’t expect players to be able to seamlessly translate their talent up a level. I have no such concerns with Cowing. 

“From what I’ve seen, Jacob is very dynamic,” safety Christian Young told me. “He’s an elusive player. He’s fast, he’s quick. He can go get the ball deep. He’s a player like I’ve never seen before and I feel like he’s going to excel in this offense.”

Cowing identifies Young immediately as one of the guys he’s gone against frequently in practice. They’ve gotten familiar. 

“I feel like the future is really bright for him,” Young says.

In so many ways, Cowing matches what this football team needed. He’s a No. 1 option who doesn’t need No. 1 touches. He makes what he has work. UTEP’s second-leading receiver last season had only 19 fewer receptions. Cowing had double the yardage. 

“I’m a team-first guy,” he says when asked if he has any goals in mind for touches or stats in his first year at the UA. “As long as us as a team are getting the job done and we get the win at the end of the day, that’s what matters to me. I don’t really care about personal stats. I just want to get the win.”

Which is what you want to hear from a presumed team leader. The Wildcats also really like wideouts Dorian Singer and Tetairoa McMillan. Freshman tight end Keyan Burnett looks like he’ll play a role right away. Freshman tailback Rayshon “Speedy” Luke is a dangerous weapon as a receiver out of the backfield. There will be a few options for de Laura to throw the ball around the yard. 

Cowing is going to lead the scouting report. He’s going to get the attention. He’s going to get touches. 

“He’s lying to you (about not caring how many touches he gets). He’s lying to you. I’ll tell you that straight up,” Cummings says with a smile. “He wants the ball every play. He’s a competitor that way. I’m glad he said for the media but he’s lying to you. He wants the ball every play.”

You don’t hear much about Cowing. 

That’s partially a product of Arizona’s lack of team success a year ago. Most view this as a group fighting to scrap together three or four wins in 2022. Given how much Arizona struggled to score last season, Cowing is a guy who could be worth a win or two on his own. If you’re tuning into Arizona games this fall, No. 2 is going to surprise you.

“People have always been asleep on me,” he told me.

They’ll start to wake up this fall.