Statement: The Arizona Wildcats weren’t particularly effective in the red zone in their opener against BYU.
Response: When have they ever been?
Forgive the sarcasm and angst. Thirteen-game losing streaks will do that to you.
The truth is, Arizona hasn’t been great in the red zone — the critical area from the 20-yard line and in — since the magical season of 2017, which looks more like an outlier every day.
In the latest edition of “Cats Stats,” we’ll explore Arizona’s red-zone performance in recent seasons and try to determine just how much it has hurt the Wildcats.
Let’s start with this past Saturday. Arizona entered the red zone four times. The Wildcats failed to score a single touchdown. Those trips netted six points.
Meanwhile, BYU went 2 for 2. Both scores were touchdowns.
The Cougars won by eight points. You could easily make the case that red-zone output was the difference in the game.
These were the results of the Wildcats’ four trips into the red zone:
Editor’s note: Each week throughout the football season, we’ll take an in-depth look at the Arizona Wildcats from a statistical perspective.
Missed field goal (after Gunner Cruz didn’t see an open Bryce Wolma for a TD on first-and-10 from the 23)
Field goal (after a first-down sack pushed Arizona back from the 12-yard line to the 20)
Missed field goal (after a 17-yard sack on third down pushed the ball back from the 9 to the 26)
Field goal (after a third-and-4 pass netted minus-1 yard)
UA coach Jedd Fisch, whose team opens its home slate against San Diego State this Saturday, said the red-zone numbers were “probably the most disappointing statistic of the night.” He would like Arizona’s touchdown rate to be somewhere in the 67%-70% range.
The Wildcats haven’t attained that level of red-zone success on a season-long basis since 2017, when they were at 71.2%. Two main factors contributed to that: They had a soft nonconference schedule that included games against NAU and UTEP (combined 10 TDs in 10 tries); and they had the best version of Khalil Tate.
Since then, Arizona has managed a touchdown rate of just 51.5% (50 of 97). To put that figure in perspective, we tallied the numbers across all of college football from the last full season that was played, 2019. The national average was 61.7%.
Meanwhile, over that same timeframe, Arizona’s opponents turned 64.1% of their red-zone visits into touchdowns.
But that doesn’t tell the full story.
Between 2018 and ’20, UA opponents averaged 4.4 trips into the red zone per game. Arizona averaged 3.2.
UA opponents averaged 5.1 points per visit. (For the sake of simplicity and consistency, we assumed each touchdown netted seven points.) Arizona averaged 4.6.
When you put all of that together, UA opponents outscored Arizona by almost eight points per game (22.7-14.9) in the red zone.
The gap has gotten bigger lately. Since the start of the 2019 season, a span of 18 games, UA opponents have outscored Arizona by almost 12 points (24.5-12.8) in the red zone. In last year’s five-game mini-season, the difference was almost three touchdowns (30.2-9.4).
Unsurprisingly, the Wildcats finished last in the Pac-12 last year with a TD rate of 38.5%. (Washington was next-to-last at 55.6%, a possible red flag that went unnoticed before the Huskies’ stunning Week 1 loss to Montana in which they scored only seven points.) Arizona also entered the red zone less than any other conference rival (2.6 trips per game). That’s not a good combination.
Is there a correlation between red-zone success and winning? The 2019 season certainly suggests as much.
Thirty-nine teams had a touchdown rate of 67% or higher; 31 of them had winning records, including all four College Football Playoff participants.
Twenty-five teams had a TD rate of less than 52%. (We’re using that figure as the cutoff to coincide with Arizona’s aforementioned 51.5% mark since the start of the 2018 season.) Only 11 had winning records, including six who were 7-6.
BYU linebacker Payton Wilgar drags down Arizona quarterback Gunner Cruz for a sack in the third quarter of last week’s game in Las Vegas.
There are outliers, of course. Oregon State led the nation in red-zone touchdown rate at 84.6% yet finished 5-7. This is where our other red-zone metrics matter.
The Beavers averaged 3.25 red-zone trips per game, ranking 92nd nationally. So even though they averaged a robust 6.2 points per trip — also No. 1 in the nation — their 20 red-zone points per game ranked just 58th.
(OSU also had a porous defense that season, finishing in the bottom 30 in yards and points allowed.)
This week’s opponent, SDSU, finished 10-3 in 2019 despite ranking fourth from the bottom in red-zone touchdown rate (43.2%). The Aztecs compensated by playing exceptional defense, ranking in the top five nationally in points and yards allowed. They won games by scores of 6-0, 17-7 and 13-3.
As Arizona defensive coordinator Don Brown said recently, “There’s a hundred ways to skin the cat.” It’s too early to tell what type of team the Wildcats will be. They might be significantly better defensively than they’ve been in recent seasons. But that doesn’t mean they can continue to lag offensively in the red zone.
Fisch cited missed opportunities in that area of the field — open receivers who weren’t detected in time. Pass-blocking breakdowns also hurt. Additionally, Fisch is still getting a feel for his personnel, and that undoubtedly will shape how he calls plays moving forward.
No matter how it looks, Arizona’s red-zone offense must improve. The Wildcats have scored only five touchdowns in 17 trips since the start of the 2020 season. A red-zone TD rate of 29.4% is enough to give anyone the blues.
