Any realistic hopes of Arizona football competing for a spot in the Big 12 championship game went out the window Saturday with the Wildcats’ 41-19 defeat to BYU.
What’s more pressing for Arizona right now is how to get the offense back on track, and in particular, how to turn quarterback Noah Fifita’s season around.
“No one cares about this team more than Noah Fifita,” Arizona coach Brent Brennan said after the loss. “We absolutely love him and we’re going to coach the hell out of him and we’re going to help him get back to what we know he can do.”
Our recap of the game can found here, as well as our grades for each unit of the team. Below is what Brennan, Fifita and defensive lineman Tre Smith had to say after the loss.
Brennan on what led to the loss: “I think there was lots of things in here. I think coming in here, we knew that the turnover thing was going to be a big deal. And, you know, that was something that we didn’t handle great. I think at the end of the first half we overthrow Keyan on that one play. But I think maybe in terms of where we were in the field position, I think maybe there wasn’t enough verticality for that route, for the outside route, and took a lot of collision on it, so kind of had two people too tight of proximity. That put that ball up there. So the turnover thing was a big deal, and it’s especially coming out of halftime to go back to back possessions with turnovers. Then I think there were spurts where we played good football, but just not enough. And you’re not going to come in here and beat a team like that. When you don’t play clean and you don’t protect the football.”
On if there’s a common theme on the turnovers: “They were four very different turnovers, right? One is a tip pick, one is a fumble, one is a we run a corner route down there with an outside release, vertical and it’s in the same space, you know, and so it was like three by one formation. So I think they’re all different. The other one was a was a pressure or sack fumble. I think they’re all different. I think that’s something that I have to look at as a head coach in terms of the situation, what we’re calling, where we are with our sequence of that kind of thing. We coming out of halftime, the play we called, we got a boundary screen, which is normally a really safe throw. They run corner chop into it. It’s a tip, guy makes a hell of a play, with a look like that. That’s one of the situations where we probably would hope (Fifita) dirt the ball, to the screen player. But he’s normally so crafty with his his arm angle that he’s able to get the ball around people. But again, I think there’s, there’s a lot that goes into this. They’re different.
On losing Jacob Manu early in the game: “I think that’s impactful because I think Jacob Manu is one of the absolute leaders of this football team. He’s an emotional leader. He’s also an excellent football player. And so I think that was impactful.”
On the impact injuries played into Arizona’s performance: “I think injuries are making things a little bit tough on us right now.”
On whether Fifita’s tendency to run far on his drop backs is by design or by pressure: “I think it’s combination of both those things. It’s also one of the things that makes him really effective, right, is his escape ability and his ability to throw on the run, like you saw multiple times today, where he was able to escape and still deliver the ball accurately downfield. So, most of the time it’s pressure related, or it’s how do I get this ball off related. I know no one cares more about this team than Noah Fifita and and we absolutely love him, and we’re going to coach the hell out of him and help him get back to what he know he can do and know he’s capable of.”
On what’s causing the offense to stalling in drives: “That’s a good question. … I think the harder part is that when we’re getting either to that fringe or that high red (zone), we have not effectively kind of kicked the door down there, you know what I mean. That’s what we’ve tended to stall out. And because Tyler Loop has been so effective, lots of times. we’ve opted to swing at field goals from there, but we all know that you’re not going to win in this league kicking field goals, and we have to find a way to put ourselves in the best position to get first downs there and score touchdowns.”
On what was the message to the team after the game: “The message to the team is that we’re halfway through the football season. And we have a ton of football left to play, and we have a choice to make, right? We have so much football left to play. My dad’s not around anymore, but one of his whole things was like, nothing in the world is less important than the score at halftime. But we’re at halftime of the football season. And so what are we going to do with it? What are we going to do with these next six opportunities? And that’s what our team needs to make a strong, firm choice in which direction we’re gonna move.”
On how to get this season back on track: “This team has a lot of heart. There’s a lot of great young people and really, really good players on this team, and we have to regroup. And I think that’s one of those things that gets hard, is when you go through a couple losses like that that are both hard ones, the challenge is to stay together. And the challenge is to not let whatever it is, the outside forces of the world, pull us apart. And I think one of the things that is really powerful about these young men is that they are a true brotherhood, and I’m excited to see how we come to work.”
On whether the offense is trying to force things: “I don’t feel that way. What were we today? I felt like we were really less effective kind of when we were, like I talked about, that high red area, that 25 maybe it’s 20 to the 30. Some work in there. I think Noah was doing a great job progressing early on in the game, and he started to get heated up a little bit more, and I think that that part of it is something that we as coaches have to take off him. We have to protect him from those moments, whether that’s heavy protection or being able to rely on the run game. At the same time, BYU defense is pretty stingy, and their front is really, really good. And so that run game where in the first half that was four, six yards a pop, right, that thing got bottled up a little bit, and that was looking a little bit more like two. And so now we’re sitting there and it’s second and eight, and we have to make bigger decisions about kind of how we’re going to try to get into third and manageable.”
Fifita on his performance: “Just kind of another week we’re doing the same things. It’s starting to just get old. I got to fix a lot of things. I got to get better individually. I think just not even close to where I want to be individually, not close to where we need to be offensively.”
On what he’s seeing on the interceptions: “I think just trying to force a few things, trying to anticipate, throw through there. I think I need to do a better job holding my eyes in certain spots to just kind of keep the safety there.”
On what’s causing the offense to be successful on the first drive and then stall: “I’m not too sure. I think just kind of coming out of the gates, we kind of already have our first play, our drive, planned out. We’ve been lucky enough to just kind of start fast in a lot of situations. Now we just got to figure out how to sustain that momentum, keep that momentum going, like I said, it starts with me getting the ball to my guys.”
On what’s causing the offense’s red zone struggles: “I think in the red zone, everything is tighter. So you got to be precise in every aspect. You got to be able to throw the ball on time at the tight windows. Receivers got to be in the exact spot. So I think it just kind of goes back to me just making sure that I can put the ball where I want it on time, on being able to anticipate things and let my guys go win one on ones.”
On whether there’s anything BYU did defensively that surprised Arizona: “No, I think we were pretty much prepared for what they’re going to give us. They gave us a lot more looks, they did a really good job mixing them up. Give a lot of credit to the coaching staff, to the players on defense. They did a really good job. Outplayed us tonight, but for the most part, I don’t think they gave us too many mixed looks.”
On how the second half turnovers put Arizona behind: “I mean they put this at a 10 point swing in, I think, two minutes. So two really bad turnovers on my part in a critical part of the field put our defense in a really tough spot. And then you just kind of see our defensive resilience to be able to just not lose hope in our offense and be able to hold them to three points in the second turnover. So our defense is playing fantastic. I got to figure it out to help our offense get going.”
On how to get the team back on track: “We don’t got time to feel sorry for ourselves at the end of the day. We got another good, big time opponent coming to our home in a week. It’s an opportunity to bounce back and like what Coach B says, the best way to feel better about this loss is to get back to work and go try to find a way to get a win next week.”
Smith on how Manu’s injury changes the defense: “Obviously he’s a very important player for us. He’s a very vocal guy. He’s a great leader. But at the end of the day, we all know as individuals, no matter who goes out or what happens, we all got to step in.”
On having new defensive backs in the rotation: “It was fine. We got things to work on. And I’m not just saying them. I’m saying up front, as an individual, every single one of us on this team has something to work on. So we’ll get better. We’ll get better all around.”
On whether Smith gets frustrated with injuries: “I mean obviously I don’t want anyone to get hurt, but no, we’re just gonna play the next down no matter what.”