Arizona Aftermath: Storylines, stats and quotes from the Wildcats' loss to Iowa State

AMES, Iowa — Arizona didn’t weather the storm Saturday night. The Wildcats were swallowed up by the white-out Cyclones at Jack Trice Stadium and never recovered.

Arizona fell to 14th-ranked Iowa State 39-14 in its Big 12 opener and suffered its first loss of the season. Arizona has lost four straight road games dating back to last season.

After Arizona’s best start to a season in a decade, the 25-point setback to Iowa State was “a harsh measuring stick,” said Arizona head coach Brent Brennan.

“I think there were some moments where we showed toughness and made some plays, but it wasn’t nearly enough,” Brennan said. “I think that’s one of those harsh realities of losing a game like that. When we don’t execute on the level that we need to against a Top 12 or 14 opponent in their stadium, you’re not going to feel great about the result.”

Here are notable storylines, statistics and quotes, among other pertinent information, from Arizona’s loss to Iowa State.

Special teams struggles

Heading into Saturday, Arizona’s special teams were already riding the struggle bus. The problems traveled with the Wildcats to Ames and some of the issues were shades of Arizona’s disastrous season last year, starting with the opening kickoff.

Arizona running back and kick returner Ismail Mahdi nearly coughed up the Wildcats’ first offensive possession after fumbling the opening kickoff on the UA 20-yard line, however, the officials ruled Mahdi’s elbow hit the ground first.

The Wildcats put together a 10-play drive, which had a 23-yard run by Mahdi, to start the game, but stalled just outside of the red zone.

Arizona kicker Michael Salgado-Medina missed a 46-yard field goal, which had a poor snap by long snapper Avery Salerno. Salgado-Medina is 2-for-6 on field goals longer than 40 yards this season. After catching a break on the opening drive, Arizona came up empty.

“You miss a field goal, those are momentum plays, because we put together a nice drive there coming off the kickoff return,” Brennan said. “That part of it is disappointing. We believe in Michael and he’s a young player, but he needs to make that kick. He knows that.”

Iowa State answered with a 72-yard touchdown drive that was set up by quarterback Rocco Becht’s 43-yard pass to wide receiver Chase Sowell down at the 1-yard line; Becht’s quarterback sneak put ISU on the board first. Iowa State went up 8-0 early after converting a two-point conversion on a “swinging gate” PAT. Tight end Gabe Burkle took the direct snap and powered his way into the end zone.

Sound familiar?

Last season, Texas Tech scored a two-point conversion on a swinging gate play, and West Virginia scored a touchdown on a fake field goal; both games were one-possession losses for the Wildcats.

Arizona safety Dalton Johnson, who had a team-high 10 tackles, was flagged for catch interference in punt coverage, which set up the Cyclones on the Arizona 38-yard line. Even though Johnson appeared to be shoved in the back, the penalty — followed up by cornerback Michael Dansby’s passing interference penalty — set up ISU running back Carson Hansen for four straight runs that were capped by a touchdown.

“Dalton, I gotta see the film on that, because something looked funny there,” Brennan said.

The Cyclones had three touchdown drives that took up fewer than 50 yards. Iowa State’s drives averaged to start at its own 37-yard line, while the average start for Arizona’s drives was at its 22-yard line. Arizona’s mistakes on special teams put the Wildcats behind 22-7 in the first half, 36-7 in the third quarter, following back-to-back scoring drives by Iowa State.

Field position was “massive” on Saturday, “especially when you’re on the road,” Brennan said.

“Starting field position for Iowa State versus starting field position for us, some of that was penalties,” Brennan said. “Those are things you can’t do. If you’re going to be a good football team, you can’t do those things.”

All about timing

On paper, Arizona and Iowa State were even for the most part. The Wildcats had just 39 fewer total yards than the Cyclones, and had more first downs and plays than Iowa State. Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita had more passing yards (253) than Becht (243), who set a career-high with three rushing touchdowns.

The Cyclones were more efficient and had a 42% touchdown rate to Arizona’s 17%. Iowa State scored on 50% of its drives to the Wildcats’ 17%. Arizona’s five drives that ended in Iowa State territory resulted in a missed field goal, an interception, a touchdown, another touchdown and another interception.

Not only did Fifita throw his first interceptions of the season, but it was his first multi-interception performance since Arizona’s blowout loss to BYU last season. On Fifita’s first interception, after two fake handoffs, ISU cornerback Jontez Williams “did a great job coming off in cover two” and read the Arizona quarterback to intercept the play-action pass, Fifita said.

“He made a great play, but I gotta be able to see that and check it out,” Fifita said.

The timing of several passes thrown by Fifita was off, too. His second interception was slightly behind Javin Whatley. Multiple passes to leading returner Chris Hunter were underthrown.

“Some of those times, Noah got moved off his spot with pass rush or pressure,” Brennan said. “That part of it is frustrating, because Chris has been a really solid player for us.”

Whatley, Hunter and Kris Hutson, who were targeted a combined 25 times, collectively caught 15 passes for 153 yards and a touchdown. Arizona’s leading trio at receiver caught 60% of their targets. Arizona bookended Saturday night with two scoreless quarters.

“When your offense doesn’t execute effectively, that’s on everybody that’s a part of it — coaches, players, all of us,” Brennan said. “That’s why I’m excited to get back, look at it and see what those issues were. Iowa State has a really sound defense. They play well, they tackle well.

“When we turn the ball over, those were such huge momentum swings in the game. We would have some momentum moving the ball or we would get a stop and move the ball and then we had those turnovers come in at really costly times. It really impacted the outcome.”

Fifita said Arizona offensive coordinator Seth Doege shouldered the blame for the loss.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

“Respectfully, I disagree,” Fifita said of Doege taking the blame. “I didn’t make him right in any situations. I gotta be a lot better for him and a lot better for the offense.”

Defensive step back

Iowa State’s offensive game plan was simple: splashy passes, get to the goal line and punch in a rushing touchdown with multiple tight ends as blockers. Becht had three rushing touchdowns despite rushing for minus-10 yards.

Becht had passes of 52, 43, 32, 27, 22 and 19 yards — four of them were to wide receiver Chase Sowell, who had four receptions on five targets for a career-high 146 yards.

Heading into Saturday, an Arizona defense that ranked in the Top 10 nationally had only allowed a combined seven big passing plays (15-plus yards) against Hawaii, Weber State and Kansas State. Arizona matched its season total on Saturday.

Arizona only allowed two touchdowns in the first three games before surrendering five touchdowns to Iowa State.

Additionally, Becht was 3-for-4 on third-down passes and converted those three passes into first downs; he was sacked on the failed one. Iowa State, one of the top third-down teams in the Big 12, went 6-for-13 on third down against Arizona, which held Kansas State to a combined 3-for-17 on third and fourth down two weeks ago.

After Iowa State’s final touchdown, the Wildcats forced the Cyclones to punt twice and settle for a field goal. In the fourth quarter, Arizona defensive back Treydan Stukes grabbed his first interception of the season — his first since the season opener last season.

“It felt good,” Stukes said. “It’s always a big-time play to give the ball back to the best quarterback (Fifita) in the conference, so we’ll try to get some more of them. At the end of the day, the team goal is to win and we didn’t get that done.”

Said Brennan: “I think we can play better. I think everybody is going to say that. You don’t need to be a genius to figure that out. I think we can play better in all three phases. Like I said earlier, this game was a big-time measuring stick for us and it was a harsh one. It hurts because they beat us and they beat us fair and square.

“Now, what are we going to do about it? That’s what I want to know. What are we going to do about it as a team, as a coaching staff? How are we going to fix that (expletive), because that was not it.”

By the numbers

35: Arizona cornerback Marquis Groves-Killebrew’s pass coverage grade, according to Pro Football Focus. Groves-Killebrew and cornerback Ayden Garnes allowed six catches for 174 yards, per PFF.

84.6: Arizona’s PFF pass-blocking grade on Saturday, the highest since the season opener last season. Right tackle Tristan Bounds, who started over Rhino Tapa’atoutai, had an 88.1 pass-blocking grade.

44.5: Average yardage per punt for Isaac Lovison, Arizona’s Australian punter transfer. Lovison replaced Salgado-Medina, who started the first three games, at punter against Iowa State. Lovison had a 55-yard punt in the first half.

1-5: Arizona’s record in road games under Brennan dating back to last season. The Wildcats’ average margin of defeat in those five losses is 27.2 points. The Wildcats are also 2-8 in Big 12 play during that span.

18-20: Arizona’s record when wearing red helmets since 2013. Arizona’s current red helmets have the navy blue claw decals. Arizona donned all-red uniforms against Iowa State, which wore all-white uniforms for the white out at Jack Trice Stadium. The last two games — Saturday night and the Territorial Cup in 2024 — Arizona wore all-red uniforms, the Wildcats have been outscored 88-21.

They said it

Brennan, on the lesson Arizona gained from its loss to Iowa State: “As I look at it, this is something we have to learn from. I have to learn from it, and we have to regroup and learn what we did well, what we didn’t do well and really attack that, collectively. There were opportunities in all three phases that we did not take advantage of.”

Brennan, on Mahdi (who rushed for 85 yards) getting 13 of Arizona’s 17 handoffs to running backs: “Ish ran the ball really well against a really good defense two weeks ago, so he got the lion’s share of the carries. We feel great about that running back room. We really do. All those guys can play. All of them can contribute. Tonight we went with Ish.”

Fifita, on Hutson’s first touchdown as a Wildcat: “You see he’s super explosive and he’s a fierce competitor. Every time a play needs to be made, K-Hut’s going to be able to make it, so it was great to see him back on the field getting his feet back under him, and I know him and the rest of the receiver room are going to take off.”

Fifita, on lessons learned from losing: “It’s hard. Losing is always difficult, but there’s a lot to learn from it. We gotta start faster, especially offensively. We gotta help our defense out when they get us some big-time stops. I’ll eat this one. ... It’s one game. Obviously, you want to win them all, but that’s one game in a 12-game season, so we gotta be able to bounce back and see how fast we can get back to redline.”

Stukes, on the silver lining of Arizona’s loss: “As far as adversity, this is the best thing we could’ve asked for. It’s easy to be out in front when things are going good, but when you get your butt kicked, we’ll see how the team is going to respond. We’ll see how we go about our work this week and get back out there next Saturday to get it done.”

Injury report

After missing the Kansas State game, Arizona running back Kedrick Reescano, linebacker Riley Wilson, Hutson and defensive end Tre Smith were all active. Wilson had three tackles, two sacks and a pass breakup. Wilson, who only played in the second half of the Weber State game prior to Saturday, started the second half against Iowa State.

“We’re excited about Riley,” Brennan said. “Riley is a guy that we’re excited to have healthy and ready to rock and roll. You started to see him get in the mix tonight and be effective when he was in there. The linebacker group is a good group for us. The good thing is to have good players, depth and high-level competition at as many positions as we can possibly have.”

Reescano was the only aforementioned Wildcat who didn’t play on Saturday.

What’s next

The Wildcats (3-1) return to Tucson to face the Oklahoma State Cowboys (1-3) at Arizona Stadium Saturday at noon on TNT, TruTV and HBO Max.

Since the start of last season, Oklahoma State is 4-12. The Cowboys recently lost to the Baylor Bears, 45-27, the game after firing longtime head coach Mike Gundy. Offensive coordinator Doug Meacham is OSU’s interim head coach.

“For us, moving forward, I’m looking forward to getting to work (on Sunday),” Brennan said. “I’m looking forward to seeing how the team attacks the process of getting the things fixed that didn’t go well tonight and that starts with me.

“We’ve got a lot of work, a lot of football left to play. I love this team, I’m excited about this team, but tonight wasn’t good enough. ... We are a football team that wants to compete for championships. We know we have to get to work and we have to earn that through our process.”