Doost Ready For Bigger Role on Arizona's Offensive Line

Arizona Wildcats right guard Alexander Doost is one of the offensive linemen with the longest tenure on the squad. It will be his second year on the team, which shows just how many returners Arizona has.

Doost doesn't see the many transfer players as a chance for competition, but more of a building of camaraderie amongst one another.

"We're all together, "Doost said. "We're a very tight-knit group. When we're not here at the facility, we're all hanging out. It's more like we all progress together. "

His experience on a squad that features 12 newcomers, seven of those being transfers, is what makes him a bona fide leader in the room. The only other player who has been there just as long is left tackle Rhino Tapa’atoutai.

Tapa'atoutai started in the first six games of the 2024 season before tearing his ACL against Colorado, ending his campaign.

"He's a very vocal guy," Doost said. "Even though he can't work out with us, he makes sure that we're all on our assignments, we're all not slacking off and he's done an amazing job at it. He's a really great teammate."

Tapa'atoutai missed spring training camp due to the injury, but was still out there as a vocal leader. He should be ready to go by summer camp, which begins on July 30.

The 6-foot-7, 332-pound redshirt sophomore out of Phoenix, AZ has been a workhorse for the Wildcats since transferring over from Northwestern in 2024, appearing in all 12 games and starting in nine of them.

Not only is Doost a workhorse, but he is a wall at the guard position as he allowed only 10 hurries, three sacks and one quarterback hit in 634 snaps as a redshirt freshman last year.

Doost has credited second-round Miami Dolphins draft pick Jonah Savaiinaea with teaching him how to be a hard nosed lineman at the Division I level.

"He really taught me how to be a starting offensive lineman," Doost said. "How to act. How to treat your other teammates. How to perform well in stressful situations. Almost every single game, no matter how down we were, Jonah was always level-headed, there to make sure we were there to keep playing."

New offensive coordinator Seth Doege brought over an up-tempo, air raid type of offense that also utilizes the run game to a heavy degree-It is the same offense that he used while at Marshal.

The high volume offense that he brought over from Marshal got the Thundering Herd an impressive 201.7 rushing yards and 181.1 throwing yards per game in a 10-win season that also saw them win the Sun Belt conference over Louisiana 31-3.

Marshal averaged 31.8 points per game and finished as the 20th-ranked team nationally in terms of rushing, a far cry from Arizona's offense that averaged 21.8 points and 106.6 yards per game (Both ranked 15th in the Big 12).

Getting acclimated to the faster-paced offense that Doege runs was something that was tough for Doost and the rest of the offensive line, but come summer training, it should be easier.

"It's a big mental thing," Doost said on handling fatigue in an up-tempo offense. "Especially when we're out there for a while, hot sun out there. We have to perform technically as well as we did the first play we were out there...It took a few practices to get used to it. The first few we puked, definitely, but I feel like we now we definitely got a better handle on it. We're all in it together, so when one guy's down, we pick each other up and make sure we get back on the ball."

Some differences with Doege's offense are spending "A lot more time on the field, I think a lot more running around. I think the past two weeks we've been using it to get our conditioning up."

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