The big week has finally arrived as Arizona gets set to begin Pac-12 play in a meeting with No. 9 UCLA this Saturday in Tucson. There will be plenty of discussions about the Wildcats and Bruins all week long and the buzz has already started to build.
We’ll wrap up the win over Northern Arizona and look ahead to this Saturday’s big game against UCLA in this week’s football focused War Room. We’ll also get you caught up on the recruiting side of things as the season and cycle continues to play out.
Let’s get right into it since there is plenty to discuss heading into the new week.
Football
Arizona was dominant in its 77-13 win over NAU on Saturday and there were plenty of records set in the win. The Wildcats were able to get some of the backup players it wanted to in the game as well, so all in all it was the type of game you would expect from the ‘Cats at this point in taking on an FCS program.
* We’ll start this week with a look at the win over NAU and some of the records Arizona was able to set with the big performances on the ground and through the air Saturday night.
- Arizona’s 77 points against NAU was the most ever for the Wildcats in one game surpassing the old mark of 74 points in a shutout of what is now known as UTEP back in 1921. The team’s 792 yards of offense was also a new school record for a single game and that mark surpassed the record of 787 set against UNLV last season.
Finally the 499 rushing yards is also a new school record as well and it is the most of any one program so far through three games this season at the FBS level.
- Saturday’s contest was the seventh time Arizona has gained more than 600 yards of offense under Rich Rodriguez. The feat was only achieved four times in school history prior to that.
- Backup quarterback Jerrard Randall finished the game as Arizona’s leading rusher with 149 yards on the ground. He also became the first known UA backup to rush for two scores of more than 70 yards in a single game.
* Now looking ahead as the new week gets started here are some of the key story lines to watch as the Wildcats prepare to defend their Pac-12 South crown with UCLA up first this weekend in Tucson.
- Offensively Arizona has things going the right way at this stage of the season. The Wildcats have found a nice balance and you also get the sense Anu Solomon is sitting on a big game still as he really has not been able to get the yards he has in previous games last season. His touchdown numbers have been impressive and he has completed a good amount of passes, but the redshirt sophomore has not necessarily run the ball particularly well or thrown for a ton of yards.
Still, the ‘Cats have found a nice balance with Nick Wilson continuing to produce and right now is a good time for the team to make that transition to conference play.
At this stage Rodriguez likes the direction the team is headed going into Pac-12 games, but there is still work to be done.
“I wasn’t really happy with our focus at the beginning of the game and our execution wasn’t there,” he said. “The guys corrected some things and played pretty well later on. We have gotten better each week in certain phases, but I think there are a lot of things that we need to get better at.”
- Defensively Arizona has some things to clean up on the backend as it was once again the secondary that had some issues in the passing game against NAU. Cam Denson allowed himself to get beat on a long touchdown play and there were some other break downs as well. As Arizona’s defensive line has continued to improve each week that back end needs to start cleaning some things up, especially with the type of offense it will face Saturday night.
“We struggled defensively a little bit and I need to watch the film and see what the issues were,” Rodriguez said. “We are going to be playing some really big skilled players in the conference so we have to get that straightened up.”
Denson wasn’t particularly pleased with his own performance, but the staff stuck with him as he earned back his starting spot in the third game of the year.
“It was an up and down game,” the Tucson native said. “At the beginning of the game, I gave up the touchdown, but I had to play better for my brothers and just go out there and play my game. I just wanted to show what I can do out there.”
- The injuries continue to be an interesting aspect of how things are shaping up for Arizona this season. Saturday’s game will the be the first chance for UA to see how much those injuries can impact things in a big way. There are still plenty of question marks surrounding Arizona’s key injuries and this week there likely won’t be many new answers and that’s how Rodriguez likes it.
Scooby Wright is of course the biggest injury for Arizona so far this season and he was supposed to begin jogging at the end of last week as he nears his target time for a return. The UCLA game was no guarantee when the Wildcats set up his initial time table and it still isn’t one at this point. This week will determine a lot and although there were reports surfacing over the weekend that UA is hopeful he will be back for Saturday's we have heard differently as of late so it will be interesting.
Still, it doesn’t hurt any for Arizona to have Wright’s possible return out there for UCLA to have to game plan for and Wright is one player you could never doubt making it back on the field early. This week of practice will be important for Wright’s status since UA would not want to put him back on the field without having at least a little work this week.
Tyrell Johnson and Trey Griffey both missed their third game this season with similar foot injuries and there is no guarantee they are back for the UCLA game either. At this stage this will be an important week for both of them as well, and don’t be surprised if they can’t go after missing so much time already.
“We have a couple guys who got banged up,” Rodriguez said about injuries coming out of the NAU game. “I don’t know if Cayleb (Jones) or Samajie (Grant) could have gone back in or not, but with the way the game was going we gave them some rest in the second half. I don’t know if we are going to get anybody back that has been injured, but I’m sure that every team has some injury issues and I don’t know if we have anyone else hurt today.”
- One X-factor moving forward for Arizona as it heads into conference play is Randall. He has scored three touchdowns on a limited amount of carries the last two games and Arizona has now given UCLA and other teams coming up something else to think about with his production and time on the field at different positions. Arizona worked him in at receiver for a time against NAU, and Randall will continue to be used all over moving forward.
“Jerrard is pretty explosive,” Rodriguez said Saturday. “He is probably one of the most popular guys on the team because he works so hard. He’s a great young man and he has gotten more and more comfortable each week. Sometimes you forget that this is his second year in the system. He is an explosive athlete and he brings a certain dimension with his ability to run.
“He can throw it too, he has as strong of an arm as anybody I’ve ever coached. He gets more and more confident each rep he takes and he had two really explosive plays today.”
Arizona has some more tricks up its sleeve that it has not shown yet, so don’t be too surprised if you see some different things starting this weekend.
* Looking ahead to UCLA the big aspect of the team that the focus is sure to be on will be freshman quarterback Josh Rosen. The former five-star recruit came back down to earth in the Bruins’ win over BYU over the weekend, but there will still be plenty of buzz with him going into Saturday’s big contest - his first Pac-12 game.
As you would expect with the No. 9 team in the country there is a lot more to UCLA than just Rosen, however, as the Bruins have a nice ground game as well in addition to a defense that features Myles Jack and plenty of other faces that are likely to end up playing on Sundays as well.
It will certainly be a big test for the Wildcats, but it UA could be catching UCLA at a good time as the Bruins were stretched to the wire against BYU. It will be an interesting week for sure with plenty of smoke and mirrors going on from both sides throughout the week.
* In addition to it just being a big game for both teams and conference opener, Arizona will be hosting ESPN’s College Game Day crew Saturday as well. It will be the first time UA has done so since 2009 and things will get underway early at 6 a.m. Saturday morning.
* To make things even more interesting the Wildcats unveiled a new chrome red helmet Sunday night after their practice as the plan right now is for it to be a red out for Saturday’s game with the Bruins. It is now the fifth different helmet Arizona has gone with adding to the collection that includes a blue version, a normal red version, a white helmet as well as the copper version as well.
There are always things quietly in the works from Arizona’s equipment staff and this is the latest one to be unveiled.
We’ll wrap up the win over Northern Arizona and look ahead to this Saturday’s big game against UCLA in this week’s football focused War Room. We’ll also get you caught up on the recruiting side of things as the season and cycle continues to play out.
Let’s get right into it since there is plenty to discuss heading into the new week.
Football
Arizona was dominant in its 77-13 win over NAU on Saturday and there were plenty of records set in the win. The Wildcats were able to get some of the backup players it wanted to in the game as well, so all in all it was the type of game you would expect from the ‘Cats at this point in taking on an FCS program.
* We’ll start this week with a look at the win over NAU and some of the records Arizona was able to set with the big performances on the ground and through the air Saturday night.
- Arizona’s 77 points against NAU was the most ever for the Wildcats in one game surpassing the old mark of 74 points in a shutout of what is now known as UTEP back in 1921. The team’s 792 yards of offense was also a new school record for a single game and that mark surpassed the record of 787 set against UNLV last season.
Finally the 499 rushing yards is also a new school record as well and it is the most of any one program so far through three games this season at the FBS level.
- Saturday’s contest was the seventh time Arizona has gained more than 600 yards of offense under Rich Rodriguez. The feat was only achieved four times in school history prior to that.
- Backup quarterback Jerrard Randall finished the game as Arizona’s leading rusher with 149 yards on the ground. He also became the first known UA backup to rush for two scores of more than 70 yards in a single game.
* Now looking ahead as the new week gets started here are some of the key story lines to watch as the Wildcats prepare to defend their Pac-12 South crown with UCLA up first this weekend in Tucson.
- Offensively Arizona has things going the right way at this stage of the season. The Wildcats have found a nice balance and you also get the sense Anu Solomon is sitting on a big game still as he really has not been able to get the yards he has in previous games last season. His touchdown numbers have been impressive and he has completed a good amount of passes, but the redshirt sophomore has not necessarily run the ball particularly well or thrown for a ton of yards.
Still, the ‘Cats have found a nice balance with Nick Wilson continuing to produce and right now is a good time for the team to make that transition to conference play.
At this stage Rodriguez likes the direction the team is headed going into Pac-12 games, but there is still work to be done.
“I wasn’t really happy with our focus at the beginning of the game and our execution wasn’t there,” he said. “The guys corrected some things and played pretty well later on. We have gotten better each week in certain phases, but I think there are a lot of things that we need to get better at.”
- Defensively Arizona has some things to clean up on the backend as it was once again the secondary that had some issues in the passing game against NAU. Cam Denson allowed himself to get beat on a long touchdown play and there were some other break downs as well. As Arizona’s defensive line has continued to improve each week that back end needs to start cleaning some things up, especially with the type of offense it will face Saturday night.
“We struggled defensively a little bit and I need to watch the film and see what the issues were,” Rodriguez said. “We are going to be playing some really big skilled players in the conference so we have to get that straightened up.”
Denson wasn’t particularly pleased with his own performance, but the staff stuck with him as he earned back his starting spot in the third game of the year.
“It was an up and down game,” the Tucson native said. “At the beginning of the game, I gave up the touchdown, but I had to play better for my brothers and just go out there and play my game. I just wanted to show what I can do out there.”
- The injuries continue to be an interesting aspect of how things are shaping up for Arizona this season. Saturday’s game will the be the first chance for UA to see how much those injuries can impact things in a big way. There are still plenty of question marks surrounding Arizona’s key injuries and this week there likely won’t be many new answers and that’s how Rodriguez likes it.
Scooby Wright is of course the biggest injury for Arizona so far this season and he was supposed to begin jogging at the end of last week as he nears his target time for a return. The UCLA game was no guarantee when the Wildcats set up his initial time table and it still isn’t one at this point. This week will determine a lot and although there were reports surfacing over the weekend that UA is hopeful he will be back for Saturday's we have heard differently as of late so it will be interesting.
Still, it doesn’t hurt any for Arizona to have Wright’s possible return out there for UCLA to have to game plan for and Wright is one player you could never doubt making it back on the field early. This week of practice will be important for Wright’s status since UA would not want to put him back on the field without having at least a little work this week.
Tyrell Johnson and Trey Griffey both missed their third game this season with similar foot injuries and there is no guarantee they are back for the UCLA game either. At this stage this will be an important week for both of them as well, and don’t be surprised if they can’t go after missing so much time already.
“We have a couple guys who got banged up,” Rodriguez said about injuries coming out of the NAU game. “I don’t know if Cayleb (Jones) or Samajie (Grant) could have gone back in or not, but with the way the game was going we gave them some rest in the second half. I don’t know if we are going to get anybody back that has been injured, but I’m sure that every team has some injury issues and I don’t know if we have anyone else hurt today.”
- One X-factor moving forward for Arizona as it heads into conference play is Randall. He has scored three touchdowns on a limited amount of carries the last two games and Arizona has now given UCLA and other teams coming up something else to think about with his production and time on the field at different positions. Arizona worked him in at receiver for a time against NAU, and Randall will continue to be used all over moving forward.
“Jerrard is pretty explosive,” Rodriguez said Saturday. “He is probably one of the most popular guys on the team because he works so hard. He’s a great young man and he has gotten more and more comfortable each week. Sometimes you forget that this is his second year in the system. He is an explosive athlete and he brings a certain dimension with his ability to run.
“He can throw it too, he has as strong of an arm as anybody I’ve ever coached. He gets more and more confident each rep he takes and he had two really explosive plays today.”
Arizona has some more tricks up its sleeve that it has not shown yet, so don’t be too surprised if you see some different things starting this weekend.
* Looking ahead to UCLA the big aspect of the team that the focus is sure to be on will be freshman quarterback Josh Rosen. The former five-star recruit came back down to earth in the Bruins’ win over BYU over the weekend, but there will still be plenty of buzz with him going into Saturday’s big contest - his first Pac-12 game.
As you would expect with the No. 9 team in the country there is a lot more to UCLA than just Rosen, however, as the Bruins have a nice ground game as well in addition to a defense that features Myles Jack and plenty of other faces that are likely to end up playing on Sundays as well.
It will certainly be a big test for the Wildcats, but it UA could be catching UCLA at a good time as the Bruins were stretched to the wire against BYU. It will be an interesting week for sure with plenty of smoke and mirrors going on from both sides throughout the week.
* In addition to it just being a big game for both teams and conference opener, Arizona will be hosting ESPN’s College Game Day crew Saturday as well. It will be the first time UA has done so since 2009 and things will get underway early at 6 a.m. Saturday morning.
* To make things even more interesting the Wildcats unveiled a new chrome red helmet Sunday night after their practice as the plan right now is for it to be a red out for Saturday’s game with the Bruins. It is now the fifth different helmet Arizona has gone with adding to the collection that includes a blue version, a normal red version, a white helmet as well as the copper version as well.
There are always things quietly in the works from Arizona’s equipment staff and this is the latest one to be unveiled.
