Arizona lost to Utah 36-23 Saturday night at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City. Here are some pertinent notes, quotes and statistics:
NOTES
* Arizona quarterback Brandon Dawkins started but was unable to finish after taking several hard hits, including one to the head late in the third quarter. Safety Isaiah Hayes and linebacker Cody Ippolito got hurt in the first half and did not return.
* Dawkins threw two interceptions in 20 pass attempts. He entered Saturday with one interception in 98 attempts.
* Senior receiver Trey Griffey matched his season high with four receptions for a season-high 109 yards.
* Receiver Nate Phillips caught two passes for 21 yards to extend his streak of consecutive games with at least one reception to 39.
* Linebacker Michael Barton made his first start as a Wildcat and had a game-high 12 tackles, including two for losses.
* Arizona cornerback Jace Whittaker, in his first start of the season, had a career-high five pass breakups.
* Arizona’s 127 rushing yards were its lowest total since the UA rushed for 115 yards against BYU in Week 1. It also marked the fourth year in a row that the Wildcats rushed for fewer yards than the previous year against the Utes. Those rushing totals: 320, 300, 298, 158, 127.
* Arizona has lost three games in a row for the first time since Oct. 24-Nov. 7 of last year. The Wildcats have lost their first three Pac-12 games for the first time since 2012, Rich Rodriguez’s first season. This is the first time they are two games under .500 since 2011.
* Utah coach Kyle Whittingham earned his 100th career victory. His first regular-season win came against Arizona in the 2005 season opener.
* Pasoni Tasini’s safety in the second quarter was Utah’s first since 2009.
* Utah punter Mitch Wishnowsky dropped five of his six punts inside the 20-yard line, including three at or inside the 5, and averaged 50.0 yards per punt. That led to a 16-yard deficit for Arizona in average starting field position.
QUOTES
Rodriguez on the defense in the first half vs. the second: “Our defense was active and fresh. I don’t know if we got tired in the second half or worn down a little bit. We’re undersized – woefully undersized – defensively, but they’re trying hard.”
Rodriguez on keeping things positive and his message to the team: “What do you want me to do, quit? You want me to quit? What are you asking? We’ll probably just go down here and, you know, maybe try to hitchhike home and go feel feel sorry for ourselves and probably just, you know, cancel the season. That’s what I think we ought to do – we ought to cancel the season. We lost a couple games. We had a couple of tough ones against some pretty good teams.
“These guys are going to fight. We’re not used to doing it, and nobody’s going to be happy. We ain’t going to be like, ‘Oh, woe is us.’ We’re going to get back to work and try to win the next one.”
Whittingham on his team’s abundance of false-start penalties: “We had a lot of false starts. A lot of those were caused by (Arizona) barking out commands on the defensive line. Disconcerting signals, that’s what it’s called, and they were not calling it, so we have to handle that.
“It’s illegal. It’s not part of the game – unless our offensive linemen were lying. They all said they were getting disconcerting signals, and I believe them. The referees said they were not hearing it and so they were not calling it. We didn’t handle it well until the second half.”
Utah DB Chase Hansen on the safety: “It was huge, because everything was a mess. It pumped us up. … They had a lot of great players making good moves, but that was the big play that jump-started the whole team.”
STATS
* Arizona outgained Utah 475 yards to 455 and averaged more yards per play (7.2 vs. 6.1).
* Arizona averaged 34.2 yards per punt, Utah 50.0.
* Utah had 14 penalties for 98 yards; Arizona had seven for 65.
* Arizona converted 6 of 12 third downs after entering Saturday with a 33.3 percent success rate.
* Wildcats tailback Zach Green averaged a team-high 3.9 yards per carry (nine rushes, 35 yards).
* Samajie Grant caught four passes for 86 yards, including a 63-yard touchdown.
* Shun Brown caught three passes for 89 yards, including a 75-yard TD.
