{"id":842597,"date":"2026-09-10T05:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T05:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/842597\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T05:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T05:56:15","slug":"arizona-coaches-have-been-obsessing-over-byu-game-for-months-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/842597\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona coaches have been obsessing over BYU game for months \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

College football coaches are fond of saying that they never look past opponents to more formidable foes.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t believe them.<\/p>\n

Cougars on the air<\/p>\n

Arizona (1-0) at No. 14 BYU (1-0)<\/p>\n

Saturday, 1:30 p.m. MDTAt LaVell Edwards StadiumTV: FoxRadio: 102.7 FM\/1160 AM<\/p>\n

At least, believe Arizona defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales, who has been saying since January that getting revenge over BYU for last year\u2019s double-overtime loss to the Cougars is top of mind for his group, even though the Wildcats played, and defeated, Northern Arizona 35-7 last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe BYU game plan is done,\u201d Gonzales said in July, according to the Arizona Daily Star.<\/p>\n

In January, the second-year defensive coordinator said two days after Arizona lost to SMU in the Holiday Bowl, on Jan. 4, that he had directed his staff to begin game-planning for the Cougars, ranked No. 15 in this week\u2019s AP Top 25 poll and a touchdown favorite in Saturday\u2019s game at LaVell Edwards Stadium.<\/p>\n

BYU quarterback \u201cBear Bachmeier had his day last year against us and I can\u2019t wait for Sept. 12,\u201d Gonzales reportedly told the Tucson-based news outlet.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Asked about Gonzales\u2019 comments on Monday, Arizona head coach Brent Brennan said it was \u201cDanny speaking for Danny\u201d and that his team was only worried about beating NAU last week.<\/a><\/p>\n

In his weekly press briefing Monday<\/a>, BYU head coach Kalani Sitake said his staff doesn\u2019t prepare for any specific team on its schedule more than another in the offseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe respect the game too much to do that,\u201d he said, noting that once the schedule comes out, \u201cwe have some prep for our offense, our defense, and special teams to be installed, and those are installed for anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, Sitake said: \u201cThe game demands too much. \u2026 Now, back in spring, we made plans and figured out what we can do. But that all changes once you get game film. So now that we have one game that we can see from Arizona, against NAU, we will see if we can adjust that a little bit, or if we need to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Sitake on Monday<\/a> and BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick when he met with reporters after practice Tuesday said they have a lot of respect for Gonzales, who they have coached against for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Danny Gonzales is a really good defensive coordinator,\u201d Sitake said. \u201cI\u2019ve known him for years, and he can do some really difficult things for an offense (to handle), with his defense, and then Seth (Doege) has done a great job with the offense.\u201d<\/p>\n

BYU has won five straight games against Arizona, including last year\u2019s 37-33 victory in Tucson<\/a> in which Bachmeier ran 7 yards for the game-winning touchdown in the second overtime period. He was also intercepted twice, while throwing for 172 yards and a touchdown.<\/p>\n

Roderick said Arizona\u2019s defense was one of the best in the country<\/a> last year and he hasn\u2019t seen any dropoff this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve coached against this defense many times in my career. It\u2019s a really tough scheme, and these guys that run this defense, man, they\u2019re so good at what they do that even when they lose a few players the next year, they\u2019re just as good as they were the year before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey play super hard and they know what they\u2019re doing and they just stick to their identity. They don\u2019t change for anybody, and I have a lot of respect for them,\u201d he continued. \u201cThey create a lot of havoc and just play their butts off. They play really, really hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier dives for a touchdown in the second overtime against Arizona during a game, Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025, in Tucson, Ariz. | AP <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"College football coaches are fond of saying that they never look past opponents to more formidable foes. Don\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,3125,99],"class_list":["post-842597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-news-feed-local","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}