On Saturday, Oct. 11, the University of Arizona football team (4-2, 1-2 in Big 12) suffered its toughest loss of the season to No. 18 BYU, 33-27 in double overtime at Arizona Stadium.
The Wildcats were up by as much as 10 points in the fourth quarter and had the upset in their grasp to finally get the signature win that head coach Brent Brennan and his team were looking for. Despite taking one of the top teams in the conference down to the wire, the Wildcats will remember this game for the rest of the season.
“As disheartening as tonight was to me, there’s a lot of positive in that game and we need to be excited about that too,” Brennan said, after the loss. “I want us to be pissed off about how that thing ended. We should be, but we should be excited about also the fact that we stood toe-to-toe with one of the most physical teams in our conference and slugged it out into double overtime.”
Rain, rain, go away
Throughout the week, there was speculation that the 5 p.m. kickoff would be moved up to an earlier time due to Hurricane Priscilla looming.
Despite many expert meteorologists’ opinions, the game started on time, but experienced a weather delay of over an hour just before the start of the second quarter due to heavy rainfall and lightning in the area.
After the lengthy stoppage, the Wildcats dominated on both sides of the ball. Arizona’s defense did not allow the Cougars to score in the second quarter, forcing a turnover on downs, missing a 42-yard field goal and coming up with an interception.
Offensively, Arizona scored 10 points on two of the three drives in the quarter, with the longest drive taking just over 3 minutes.
Going airborne
Arizona’s offense is known for being explosive, especially with first-year offensive coordinator and quarterback coach Seth Doege calling plays. Redshirt junior quarterback Noah Fifita finished the night with 219 passing yards, 2 touchdowns, an interception and 25 completions on 45 attempts.
In the opening quarter, Fifita found wide receiver Kris Hutson in the back of the endzone for a 17-yard touchdown to get on the board and cut the deficit to 14-7.
Just before halftime, Fifita dropped back and launched a rainbow pass to redshirt junior wide receiver Chris Hunter, falling perfectly into his hands for a 35-yard touchdown to take Arizona’s first lead of the game, 17-14.
Red zone struggles
Despite the explosive plays beyond the 20-yard line, Arizona was in the red zone just five times throughout the game, yet scored only 1 touchdown. The lone touchdown came in the opening quarter.
“I think it’s a combination of BYU being a really good football team and a combination of us not executing on the level we need to when we get down to the red zone,” Brennan said postgame.
In the opening overtime period, junior running back Kedrick Reescano ran into the endzone for a 9-yard touchdown, but was called back by a holding penalty on redshirt senior left guard Chubba Maae, forcing the Wildcats to settle for a field goal.
“In the red zone, everything gets faster. So you got to be super detailed, you got to be on time with everything […] those are opportunities you can’t miss and at the end of the day I think the red zone told the story,” Fifita said.
Turnover central
The Arizona defense forced three turnovers from the Cougars. Two of the three were interceptions and the solo turnover was on downs.
Coming out of the weather delay, BYU faked a punt on the opening drive of the second quarter, but came up short by 3 yards on fourth down after a great tackle by redshirt senior defensive back Dalton Johnson, swinging momentum in Arizona’s favor and allowing the Wildcats to take over on the Cougars’ 44-yard line and score a field goal off the turnover.
Towards the end of the quarter, BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier was picked off at the Arizona 39-yard line by redshirt senior Treydan Stukes to halt BYU’s drive from scoring before halftime.
Late in the third quarter, Johnson came through yet again, intercepting Bachmeier at the Arizona 26-yard line, capping off an 8-play drive.
Accountability
One of the three pillars in Brennan’s motto, ‘Redline,’ since arriving in Tucson, is accountability.
“We talk about redline accountability, that starts with me and that’s everybody in the facility,” Brennan said.
Fifita added that he blames the loss on himself, especially on the red zone miscues.
“I think that one is on me […] we had chances to ice the game, we had chances to keep the momentum on our side or bring the momentum back and we missed those opportunities,” Fifita said.
Doege and defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales both came forward and took blame for the loss as well.
“Do I take accountability for us not being good in the red zone? Absolutely, that’s on me,” Doege said. “I’m gonna own it, I’m gonna fix it.”
“I hate losing more than I enjoy winning and as gut-wrenching as that was, if the city of Tucson wants to be mad at somebody in the Wildcat nation, go ahead and be mad at me,” Gonzales said.
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