Washington outlasted Arizona Saturday night in Seattle, beating the Wildcats 42-31 to improve to 6-2 (4-1 Pac-12). The Wildcats fell to 2-6 (1-5).
After scoring on its first two possessions, the Arizona offense struggled to find a rhythm for much of the night. Quarterback Nick Foles threw three interceptions and the Wildcats turned the ball over three times in the fourth quarter.
Freshman cornerback Cortez Johnson, starting for the suspended Shaq Richardson, suffered a concussion in the fourth quarter — his second of the season.
Check back with the Daily Wildcat for more coverage of Saturday’s game.
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After three quarters, Arizona is tied with Washington at 28, but the Wildcats have second-and-goal from the 5-yard line when the fourth quarter starts.
I’ll be going down to the field soon, but follow @WildcatSports for more updates, and I’ll update this with some stats and whatnot postgame.
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Not to be that guy, but the officiating this game has been horrible on both sides.
Arizona put together a penalty-aided four-play, 65-yard touchdown drive that ate up 1:48 to tie the game at 28.
The Wildcats needed that score to answer UW, which has marched all over the Arizona defense since the first quarter.
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And the line of freaky interception returns for touchdowns in this stadium between Arizona and Washington continues.
Safety Rob Golden picked off a bobbled pass and returned it 91 yards for a score, and Nick Foles found David Douglas for the two-point conversion to tie the game at 21.
If Golden doesn’t make that play, there’s a good chance that UW scores a touchdown and this game’s pretty close to over.
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Arizona’s probably lucky to only be down one at half. After three of its first four drives yielded points, the Wildcat offense struggled to find a rhythm in the second quarter.
Special teams — specifically kickoff coverage — hasn’t been kind to Arizona, and Kyle Dugandzic has had a couple of short punts to go along with a touchback. John Bonano connected on two field goals to remain perfect as Arizona’s placekicker.
Washington will receiver the opening kick of the second half.
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Washington’s second touchdown drive was aided by a couple of big plays, both of which included a blown coverage in the Arizona secondary.
Washington completed passes of 33 and 19 yards on its way to a 8-play, 59-yard drive that took 3:20 off the clock.
The Huskies have all of the momentum, so it’s up to the Arizona offense to get some of that back on this drive.
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Washington finally got a stop on the Arizona offense and turned it into a touchdown to make the score 10-7, but the Wildcats answered with a 47-yard field goal to make it 13-7 — Bonano’s second of the night.
Washington’s offense was helped out by a couple of blown coverages on the touchdown drive, but freshman corner Cortez Johnson has played well so far. He’s been on an island a couple of times but hasn’t given up any ground.
So it’s Arizona 13, Washington 7 with just over 9:30 to play in the first half.
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After the first quarter of play, Arizona’s leading Washington, 10-0.
The Washington offense has the ball at the 39-yard line when play resumes. Arizona is outgaining Washington, 132-52. Foles has thrown for 102 yards and has found four different receivers, including Juron Criner for a 24-yard catch-and-run touchdown.
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And the Arizona offense is clicking right now. Foles hits Criner for a 24-yard score after Taimi Tutogi was able to convert in a short-yardage situation.
Through two possessions, UW has tried blitzing and trusting its corners one-on-one with Arizona’s receivers. As the Huskies are finding out, that’s probably not the best way to get stops against the Wildcats.
Arizona forced a 3-and-out on its first defensive possession by mixing up its fronts and being aggressive. The Wildcats showed three different fronts, and when they made a decision, they stuck with it and didn’t hesitate.
Arizona’s looking good through the first eight-plus minutes, leading Washington 10-0 with 6:29 to play in the first quarter.
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Outside of having to settle for three, Arizona’s opening drive was pretty successful. The Wildcats moved the ball through the air, ran it a little bit and ended up getting points on a John Bonano 36-yard field goal.
Deciding to kick the field goal was the right decision after Arizona originally sent the offense out, but had to call timeout after not getting substitutions into the game on time.
Foles found three different receivers — Juron Criner, Gino Crump and Austin Hill — and both Keola Antolin and Daniel Jenkins had carries.
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Arizona won the toss and wants to start on offense. Just about a minute away from kickoff at Husky Stadium.
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A couple little notes:
I’ve seen a couple of places that have tonight’s over/under at 71 points. They’re expecting a ton of scoring.
Arizona running back Taimi Tutogi has a brother, Thomas, that plays linebacker for Washington. Thomas wears No. 50 and is the Huskies’ second-string inside linebacker.
UCLA ran for 294 yards in a win over Cal just a little over a week after being held to 37 yards on the ground by Arizona. It’ll be interesting to see if Arizona can have success stopping the run against Washington and Chris Polk.
Tonight’s game is the second-to-last game at Husky Stadium before it undergoes a major renovation in time for the 2013 season. Washington takes on Oregon next week at home and will play the 2012 season at CenturyLink Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks.
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Wide receiver Tyler Slavin was going through drills with the defensive backs, and he’ll be one of the players that interim head coach Tim Kish referenced when he said an offensive player or two might help out on the defensive side of the ball because of the suspensions in the secondary. But I wouldn’t expect to see Slavin unless it’s a real emergency situation for Arizona.
Third-string quarterback Daxx Garman didn’t travel with the team because of a health issue, but he should be good to go after this weekend. Running back Greg Nwoko was the only one of the Wildcats that have gone down with knee injuries to make the trip, but he’s not in pads and didn’t go through any warmups.
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Arizona’s going with white helmets and jersey with blue pants, while Washington will be in gold helmets with black jerseys and pants to go along with the blackout theme the fans are following for tonight’s homecoming game.
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It’s going to be an almost perfect night in Seattle — where Washington hasn’t lost in 2011 — with the forecast calling for temperatures around 50 degrees with partly cloudy skies. Arizona’s looking for its second win in as many weeks and can afford only one more loss if it hopes to reach a bowl game for the fourth time in as many years.
Washington is coming off of its worst defeat of the season, a 65-21 dismantling at the hands of Stanford. The Cardinal rushed for a school-record 446 yards, so it’ll be interesting to see if Arizona can have success on the ground.
This will probably be a high-scoring affair. Both teams have pretty potent offenses but not much to speak of on the defensive side of the ball. It’ll be interesting to see whether one of the defenses found something on film to slow down the opposing offense.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens, so check back for more updates throughout the night.
