The Star's Michael Lev checks in with five storylines to watch when Washington takes on Arizona on Saturday night at Arizona Stadium. The game starts at 8 p.m., and will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1 and 1290-AM.
Arizona Wildcats safety Christian Young has learned, the hard way, how to channel his emotions
Arizona defensive coordinator Marcel Yates has words for Arizona safety Christian Young (5) after he picked up an unsportsmanlike penalty during the first quarter against Northern Arizona at Arizona Stadium, Tucson, on Sept. 7, 2019.
Forgive Christian Young for his youthful exuberance.
The Arizona Wildcats safety is less than halfway through his sophomore season. He gets excited when he or his teammates make a big play — as he should.
“He’s very energetic,” said cornerback Lorenzo Burns, Young’s teammate and roommate.
Young’s enthusiasm got the best of him earlier this season. He received two unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties for overly animated celebrations against NAU on Sept. 7. By rule, he was disqualified from the game.
UA coach Kevin Sumlin was furious afterward, describing the penalties committed by Young and others as “selfish” acts.
“You’re drawing attention to yourself,” Sumlin said at the time. “That’s not all right. We’re not gonna tolerate that.”
Arizona committed a season-high 11 penalties for 127 yards against NAU. The Wildcats have been more disciplined since — and so has Young, who appears to have learned a valuable lesson.
“Just keep your composure on the field,” he said this week. “After you make a play, just go to the sideline and celebrate with your teammates, your coaches.”
It’s easier said than done. As Burns, a redshirt junior, noted: “Football is a very emotional game.” The atmosphere is expected to be electric Saturday night, when Washington comes to Arizona Stadium. The Wildcats have won four straight and sit alone in first place in the Pac-12 South.
Young let his emotions get the best of him in the home opener against an FCS opponent that Arizona defeated handily.
“I’m still a young player,” Young said. “Being out there, all the lights in your face, it’s a big stage. I felt the energy from the fans. I was hyped up. I was having fun.”
Too much, it turned out. After fellow safety Tristan Cooper made a third-down stop in the first quarter, Young got down on a knee and pretended to shoot an arrow at his teammate. NCAA rules prohibit “simulating the firing of a weapon.” Out came the flag.
“The first penalty I kind of felt it, like I did something wrong,” Young said. “I should have (gone) to the sideline. But the second, the pass deflection, I was like, dang, I didn’t think I did anything wrong with that one.”
The second foul came after Young broke up a pass. He turned to the crowd and raised his arms. He just happened to do so along the NAU sideline.
“Wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.
Young believes he has matured since then, a notion seconded by Cooper, who also lives with Burns and Young. Their other roommate is tailback J.J. Taylor. Three of the four are from the recruiting class of 2016. The upperclassmen wouldn’t have welcomed Young if they didn’t respect him. But they also have seen him grow.
“He loves playing the game,” Burns said. “He goes in and watches more film now. He communicates to us more about what he needs … He’s not afraid to ask for help.
“Things are gonna happen on the football field. And that goes with anybody. So we don’t really pass too much judgment on that.”
If anything, Young’s older teammates are sympathetic to his plight. They have been in his cleats.
“You live and you learn,” Burns said. “When you make a great play … you jump up and down with your teammates and celebrate on the sideline.
“There’s a certain way of handling your emotions on the field.”
Khalil Tate’s picks, dearth of defensive sacks among 5 concerning UA stats
Will Khalil Tate has dazzled with his play, but is turning the ball over too much.
Arizona is playing its best football of the season. But the Wildcats are far from a perfect team.
Here are five stats that should give UA fans pause entering Saturday night’s game against Washington:
Stat: QB Khalil Tate has thrown five interceptions.
Comment: One could argue that Tate is playing the best football of his career, or at least the most efficient. He’s on track for career bests in completion percentage (67.5), yards per attempt (9.1) and efficiency rating (160.1).
Tate also is on pace for a career high in picks.
If he were to play the rest of the season and maintain his current rate, Tate would finish with 13-14 interceptions. The most he has thrown in a season is nine. Last year he threw eight.
Tate already has more multiple-interception games this season (two) than he had last year (one). Arizona is 1-1 in those games. Entering 2019, the Wildcats were 0-3 when Tate threw more than one pick.
Stat: Arizona ranks last in the Pac-12 and tied for 126th nationally with four sacks.
Comment: Sacks aren’t the only way to measure the effectiveness of a pass rush. They might not even be the best way. But you’d rather have them than not.
The difference between a sack and a pressure is that the former costs opponents yards. The Wildcats’ four sacks have produced 8 yards in losses – the lowest total in the country.
Arizona is on pace for 10 sacks (and that’s after rounding up). That would match the total posted by the 2011 Wildcats, who finished 4-8. Only two other times — 2006 (15) and 2012 (16) — has Arizona finished a season with fewer than 20 sacks since joining what was then known as the Pac-10 in 1978.
Stat: Arizona ranks 10th in the Pac-12 and 115th nationally with a defensive stop rate of 46.7% on third downs.
Comment: This remains a bugaboo under defensive coordinator Marcel Yates, although the Wildcats were trending in the right direction entering this season.
After opponents converted 52.3% of their third downs in 2016, Yates’ first year in Tucson, that number fell to 46.7% in ’17 and 41.1% last year.
Arizona hasn’t had a game where it’s been flat-out awful in third-down defense. But it took until last week for the Wildcats to hold an opponent under 40%. Colorado finished 6 of 16 (37.5%) on third downs.
Stat: Arizona ranks 11th in the Pac-12 and 119th nationally in total defense (477.8 yards per game).
Comment: The Wildcats have come up with clutch stops. They limited Texas Tech and UCLA to a combined 31 points.
But Arizona has yet to hold an opponent under 400 yards. The Buffaloes nearly reached 500 last week, finishing with 496.
How long can the Wildcats keep this up and keep winning, especially with their takeaway total regressing to the mean? (The UA had 10 takeaways in its first three games, one in its past two.)
Arizona doesn’t have to be great defensively to win, but most of its numbers so far suggest it remains below average on that side of the ball.
Stat: Arizona ranks 10th in the Pac-12 and 100th nationally with a net punting average of 36.14 yards.
Comment: UA opponents have a net average of 41.4 yards per punt. That difference of about 5 yards is a big deal.
Arizona was able to defeat Colorado despite a 6-yard deficit in average starting field position. It was significantly worse — 14 yards — in the first half.
That wasn’t solely a product of poor punting; if anything, it had more to do with the Wildcats’ punt returners making mistakes.
Senior punter Matt Aragon has improved since a shaky start. But he’s still being outkicked by his counterparts by 5 yards in gross average.
Arizona’s past two games have been decided by a total of eight points. Three of its first five have been decided by one score or less. In close games, every yard counts.
Arizona’s veteran cornerbacks welcome help from their understudies
Arizona cornerback Christian Roland-Wallace (4) comes flying in to snatch the ball out of the arms of Northern Arizona wide receiver Riley Langton (83) for an interception during the third quarter of their Sept. 7 game.
Cornerbacks Lorenzo Burns and Jace Whittaker started every game for Arizona in 2017. It felt at times as if they were playing every snap.
Burns and Whittaker are again staples in the secondary after both battled injuries last season. But they aren’t playing quite as much. And it has nothing to do with their health — other than perhaps sustaining it.
The Wildcats have two freshman cornerbacks who look like future starters in Christian Roland-Wallace and Bobby Wolfe. Both have played in critical moments. The coaches trust them. So do Burns and Whittaker.
“Those guys came in, and they did everything they were asked to do,” Whittaker said. “They take football seriously. Hats off to them and what they’ve done so far. They’ve just got to keep building on it.”
Roland-Wallace and Wolfe have combined for 11 tackles, four pass breakups and one interception. Their emergence has given the veteran cornerbacks a newfound level of “comfort” when they need to come off the field to rest or nurse a minor injury, Burns said.
It also has raised the overall level of play and accountability among the cornerbacks. Burns and Whittaker are tied for the team lead with three interceptions and four pass breakups apiece.
“We all help each other,” Burns said. “They ask for advice. Sometimes us vets mess up. We’re not perfect. We ask them what they see.”
OT loss to No. 9 Huskies was a highlight for lowly 2016 Wildcats
Washington wide receiver Dante Pettis (8) strikes a pose and gets a hug from tight end Drew Sample (88) after catching what turned out to be the winning score in a 35-28 in overtime over Arizona at Arizona Stadium in 2016.
Because of the Pac-12 schedule rotation, Arizona and Washington haven’t faced each other since 2016. That Sept. 24 matchup in Tucson was a doozy.
The Huskies came to town as the ninth-ranked team in the nation. They were favored by 16 points by the time the Pac-12 opener kicked off.
The Wildcats battled them from beginning to end. The margin between the teams was never greater than seven points. Arizona tied the score at 28-all with 17 seconds to play on Brandon Dawkins’ 3-yard touchdown pass to Josh Kern.
The Wildcats won the overtime coin toss and elected to play defense. Jake Browning connected with Dante Pettis for a 4-yard touchdown to give UW a seven-point lead.
Arizona advanced to the 10-yard line on its OT possession. The drive ended with a sack and a pair of incomplete passes. Washington escaped with a 35-28 victory.
Although they lost, the game turned out to be a highlight for the ’16 Wildcats, who finished 3-9. It was the first of eight straight defeats, none of which was as competitive as the UW game.
“It was a testament to our team,” Dawkins, who rushed for 176 yards and accounted for three touchdowns, said afterward.
“To put up a fight like that, I’m really proud of the guys.”
The losing streak ended in the regular-season finale, when Arizona defeated Arizona State 56-35.
Besides UW, which Pac-12 North schools does Arizona face in coming seasons?
Arizona Wildcats running back Gary Brightwell (23) makes a sprint towards the end zone for the team's first touchdown of the night during NAU Lumberjacks vs. Arizona Wildcats football at Arizona Stadium, Tucson, on Sept. 7, 2019.
For better or worse, Washington is back on Arizona’s schedule for the next six seasons, starting Saturday.
The South and North divisions in the Pac-12 rotate cross-divisional matchups every two years. Here’s a look at the North Division schools the Wildcats face — and miss — through 2026:
2019-20
North foes: Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Washington
Off the schedule: Cal, Washington State
2021-22
North foes: Cal, Oregon, Washington, WSU
Off the schedule: OSU, Stanford
2023-24
North foes: OSU, Stanford, Washington, WSU
Off the schedule: Cal, Oregon
2025-26
North foes: Cal, Oregon, OSU, WSU
Off the schedule: Stanford, Washington
