Arizona rallied from down 14 points entering the fourth quarter to tie it on Saturday at Houston, only to lose on a last-second field goal. It was the second straight loss for the Wildcats that came down to the end, following last week’s double-OT home defeat to unbeaten BYU.
No room for moral victories, UA coach Brent Brennan said.
“This team is hurting right now,” Brennan said. “You lose on the last play of the game, you lose in double overtime. Obviously I’m pissed off and upset, and so is every person in this program. Because I think we’ve grown a lot, we’ve made a ton of progress, but to not close that thing out when we had an opportunity too, just makes every person in here sick.”
Arizona (4-3, 1-3 Big 12) has lost five consecutive road games and has another one coming up at Colorado on Nov. 1. First, though, is the Wildcats’ second bye.
“We have a bye week, which is good, because we need to practice,” Brennan said. “We need to get better at tackling and blocking and playing frickin’ football.”
Our game recap can be found here. Below is what else Brennan said following the loss:
On scoring twice in the 1st quarter: “I think we came out fast and physical early, I think we set the tone for how we wanted to play early. I felt like a huge momentum swing was when we didn’t get the 4th down (in the second quarter), when we went for it deep in the red zone, and then ended up giving up points on the back side of that.”
On the run defense last 2 games: “I think we’ve played two good football teams, for starters. Both played a bunch of plus-one run with the quarterback run. It’s a lot different than lining up and handing off to the running back. But that’s something we’re going to see, Colorado’s quarterback is a great runner, so we’re going to see that the rest of the season, so we’ve got to figure that out. Today. Coach Gonzales is a fantastic football coach, we’ve played excellent defense this year. We’ve had a tough go with two really good football teams the last two weeks.”
On the sideline interference penalty: “I wish it was a sideline warning, it was not. That was Coach (Bobby) Wade. I’ll tell you this, there’s no person on our staff or in our program or in our athletic department that’s worthy of 15 (yards). Nobody, not me, not Coach Wade. That’s ridiculous. And so we’re going to address that, too.”
On the turning point of the game: “We didn’t get it on 4th down. That’s a situation right there where we have to play complimentary football. We’re inside the 30 I believe and we go on 4th and 1. Number one we need to get it, like we did in the game. We were aggressive, we had our foot on the gas pedal in the 4th quarter. That one in the first half, we need to get that first down so we can keep that drive moving and add points there. But what happened was we didn’t get it and we gave up points right at half. That was a big impact on the game.”
On Tre Spivey: “Tre’s awesome. He’s a transfer kid but he’s an Arizona kid, and it’s so important that we recruit the state of Arizona. And if those players leave the state of Arizona and want to come back we’ve got a good place for them. And I think Tre Spivey would tell you this is a good place for you to come. I think he improves every week, he’s someone getting more comfortable in the scheme. That first touchdown was an incredible play by Noah, and then the DB undercut it and missed it and Tre got out, which was great, because you got to see how fast he was for such a big body.”
On Noah Fifita: “Amazing. You know how I feel about Noah Fifita, he’s special in every way. I mean that. To be 24 of 26, like how many times has that ever happened in college football? I think what’s happening is kind of the synergy between Noah and Coach Doege and the offense continues to accelerate. The more we play the more we know each other and the more we get into the flow of things. And I think Noah is trusting in the offense and believing in Coach Doege and you’re seeing good results. Now damnit, we want to win. We want to win the damn game.”
On coming back from down 14 in the 4th: “This team’s got a ton of fight. This team is a great group of kids, they love the U of A. They love each other. They love this program. I think a lot of people say that, it’s lip service, I think it’s BS when we people say it. When we say it it’s real. All these kids chose to stay or they chose to come because they believe in what’s happening here. That fight didn’t surprise me at all, I loved it. I’m just crushed we couldn’t get a stop there when we needed to, to try and turn it back and go the other way. The way they responded late in this game was fantastic. And a week ago we were down two touchdowns in the first quarter and we came roaring back. These kids are fighting their ass off.”
On his message to the team after the loss: “My message to the team is we have a good football team. We’ve lost to good teams on the last play of the game and in double overtime. And as much as that hurts, the good news is we can fix it. The easiest errors to fix are assignment errors. If you get beat by a better player … sometimes that happens in football. I don’t think that’s the case these last two weeks. I think we showed we can play with these people. We’re right there. With the team, I was like okay, let’s fix what we can fix. Let’s stay together and not let the outside noise, social media, whoever, pull us apart and do the right thing for each other now.”