Arizona’s losing streak is the same as it was before the bye week, a 5-game skid that has turned the 2024 season from one of hope to despair. Nearly all of the goals the Wildcats had back in August are no longer attainable, with becoming bowl-eligible teetering on the edge of going away as well.
The UA (3-6, 1-5 Pac-12) must win its final three games in order to get a 13th, something that didn’t seem like it would be an issue before the season. That can still happen, but coach Brent Brennan said only if the focus and preparation for this week’s opponent is XXXX.
“Absolutely,” Brennan said Monday when asked if bowl eligibility is being used as motivation. “I think that’s the big picture, like the long term thing. But I also know if we’re looking at that thing three weeks from now, we’re going to miss the thing that’s right in front of us. And what’s right in front of us is more important than that, which is playing good football Friday night in our stadium against Houston.”
Houston (4-5, 3-3) comes to town for an 8:15 p.m. MT Friday night clash—one that conflicts with the 9th-ranked UA men’s basketball team’s 7 p.m. MT game at Wisconsin, which among other things figures to impact the crowd at Arizona Stadium—having won its last two and three of four. The Cougars’ most recent win, on Nov. 2, was an upset of then-No. 20 Kansas State, a team that throttled Arizona 31-7 in Week 3.
“They’re a hot team right now,” Brennan said of Houston, which swept Arizona in a nonconference home-and-home series in 2017-18.
The last time Arizona came out of a bye week, in late September, it played arguably its best game of the season in upsetting then-No. 10 Utah 23-10 in Salt Lake City. The Utes haven’t won since then, somewhat lessening the value of that victory on paper, but Brennan has seen a similar approach from his team during the time off as he did back then.
“I think the biggest similarity is just how they come to work,” he said. “I think that’s been a real positive. And I think that’s one of those hard things, when you’re 18 to 23 years old is just, when you’re frustrated or when you’re disappointed, can you stay on task? Can you still be committed to the cause? Can you still be committed to the guy on your left in your life? If we’re going to say the Bear Down, Brotherhood is so important, how willing are we going to be to invest in the right things to give us a chance to play well?”
Brennan referred to Arizona’s last three scheduled games—it visits TCU on Nov. 23 before hosting ASU in the Territorial Cup on Nov. 30—as the “fourth quarter.” The Wildcats have been outscored 59-57 in the fourth quarter this season, including 41-28 during the losing streak.
Asked about his message to the team going into the home stretch, Brennan said he focused on asking the players how they wanted to be remembered.
“This last stretch of this brotherhood, how do you want this to end?,” he said. “And I think that’s something they all lean in to heavy. Attacking the work and finishing this thing the right way is what everybody in the program should be all about right now. We have three games left, and they’re all going to be tough, but that’s why you play the games, because every day you have a chance to win a game and every game you have a chance to not. So let’s put everything we’ve got into these next three weeks, starting with this week, and starting with what we’re doing right now.”