The Arizona football team took on Mississippi State University in their home opener on Saturday, Sept. 10, at Arizona Stadium in Tucson. Mississippi State took home the victory by a score of 39-17 while the Wildcats still haven’t beaten an SEC team in football since the win over Auburn in 1976.
The main focus of today’s game was quarterback, Jayden de Laura, who showed tonight that there is plenty of room for improvement. Although his receivers had multiple drops, de Laura still did not play as well as expected.
He went 23-45 and threw for 220 yards with a touchdown pass. The Pac-12 Freshman of the Year under-performed. De Laura threw three costly interceptions to make his total for the season four interceptions in just two games. The offensive line needs to work on the pass rush as de Laura was under pressure the whole game.
Another improvement that coach Fisch will be looking to make next weekend would be the running game. The Wildcats ran for only 37-yards against Mississippi State. The offensive line didn’t seem to be doing a good job of creating holes as the run was stopped consistently by the Mississippi State d-line.
The Arizona defense held it to a one-possession game until the fourth quarter when Mississippi state started to run away with it. The defense looked strong overall except for the defensive line.
Mississippi State quarterback, Will Rogers, was obviously comfortable in the pocket where it seemed as if he had all the time in the world to throw the ball. Rogers threw for over 300 yards and four touchdowns with a completion percentage of 80%.
The receiving core didn’t look great either as there were five players with at least 40 receiving yards and three of them were running backs Michael Wiley, DJ Williams and Jonah Coleman. Tetairoa McMillan was a bright spot in the game with 69 receiving yards from four receptions.
The Arizona football team will look to get back over .500 next weekend against North Dakota State University on Saturday, Sept. 17, in Tucson.
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