Stopping the run 'a huge point of emphasis' for Arizona Wildcats during bye week

Sometimes a bye week falls at the right moment.

After a “really hard day Saturday in Houston” that resulted in the Arizona Wildcats falling to the Houston Cougars in walk-off fashion, a week after the UA (4-3) lost to BYU in overtime, Arizona’s bye week — the last one of the season — “is a really important time for us,” said head coach Brent Brennan.

“An opportunity for us to get fresh, for us to dive into some fundamental parts of playing football and, as always, attack redline,” Brennan said. “The players came in (Sunday), obviously everyone is hurting, but they’re committed to doing this the right way.

“We have five games left, a lot of football left to play and we’re excited about it. ... We’ve got our work cut out for us, but we’re excited to get going.”

Arizona’s bye week is “going to be a combination of both” working on mistakes from the latest setbacks, along with recovering from the wear and tear of a long season.

“A big part of this week is that we need to get fresh,” Brennan said. “We’ve been at this for a few months now, guys are beat up and we need to get our bodies fresh. We need to be smart about the intentional work that we get done in the practice environment, getting fresh, returning to fundamentals and getting introduced to some preliminary Colorado game-plan stuff.”

Among the issues that will be addressed during the bye week: tackling and stopping the run.

Arizona gave up a combined 490 rushing yards against BYU and Houston, with 449 of those yards coming from Houston quarterback Conner Weigman, UH running back Dean Connors, BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier and running back LJ Martin.

“We weren’t doing what we were supposed to do,” Arizona linebacker Max Harris said on Saturday. “It was nothing that they really did. It’s all on us. It’s hard letting people run the ball, but it’s a fixable thing, so it’s nothing crazy and nothing we can’t fix. It’s up to us to fix it.”

The Wildcats allowed a combined 187 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns to quarterbacks in the last two games. Both Bachmeier and Weigman “are powerful, strong kids,” Brennan said.

“That’s a situation where you have to have population at the football and we have to get people on the ground,” Brennan said.

In both games, the Wildcats “missed too many tackles,” Brennan said. Arizona had a season-high 15 missed tackles against BYU and 10 against Houston, according to Pro Football.

“Those numbers shouldn’t have been what they would’ve been if we made the tackle or got the guy down when he had a chance to,” Brennan said. “I also think they (Houston) do a good job schematically. Obviously, their quarterback and (running) back are both really good players.”

Arizona safety Genesis Smith had a team-high four missed tackles on Saturday. Smith and Harris both lead the team with 11 missed tackles this season. As a team, Arizona is averaging just over 10 missed tackles per game this season; it averaged 11.8 last season.

Missed tackles also happened in the passing game, too.

Before Houston wide receiver Amare Thomas broke out for a 52-yard touchdown in the first quarter, cornerback Michael Dansby unsuccessfully attempted to jump the pass for an interception or pass breakup, then Thomas escaped defensive backs Treydan Stukes and Dalton Johnson’s attempt to tackle the UH standout.

The missed tackles were more notable against the run. The 6-3, 210-pound Weigman averaged 4.2 yards after contact against Arizona, according to PFF. Weigman had eight runs for first downs on Saturday.

Leading up to Arizona’s contests against BYU and Houston, two teams that are in the top half of the Big 12 in rushing yards, the Wildcats allowed a combined 488 rushing yards in the first five games — an average clip of 97.6 rushing yards per game, which would be tied for the 18th-best rushing defense in college football and second in the Big 12. After allowing 490 yards in the last two games, Arizona’s rushing defense currently ranks 60th in college football and is sixth in the Big 12.

“That’s a huge point of emphasis for us, really, because we were so good at the beginning of the season in our run defense,” Brennan said. “What we’ve seen is that people are attacking us with a bunch of quarterback runs the last two weeks. That’s obviously a huge point of emphasis as we get going here. ... We’re playing good defense and obviously it wasn’t good enough on Saturday.

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“I’m confident with (defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales) and the defensive side of the ball. Those guys will get going. They’ll get that thing on track.”

Here are other items of interest Brennan discussed in his weekly news conference on Monday:

Brennan, on submitting missed calls and penalties against Houston to the Big 12, including the sideline interference penalty on wide receivers coach Bobby Wade and an illegal motion penalty on Connors that was waived on the final drive: “We did submit them and they did get back to us. Honestly, we’ve been talking way too much about the officials the last two weeks. Really, I just want to focus on what’s next and that’s the University of Colorado.”

Brennan, on the midseason progression of Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita after completing 24 of 26 passes for two touchdowns against Houston: “Noah is on a great track. When you complete 24 of 26, that’s a pretty special day in football anywhere. ... I think Noah and his relationship with (offensive coordinator Seth Doege), his comfort in the offense, I think you see that improving and growing week-by-week. It also speaks to the competitors and hard worker he is. It’s so important to him. When you see someone invest that level of time, effort and energy into being good and you see the results, it’s awesome to see that for that kid.”

Brennan, on Fifita’s 4-yard average depth of target (ADOT) and sub three-second time-to-throw (TTT) average against Houston being the norm in Arizona’s passing game: “It depends on who we’re playing, where the ball goes. Credit to Noah, that ball was being delivered with accuracy and timing to the right spots. I thought Coach Doege and the offensive staff did a nice job scheming that up.”

Brennan, on wide receiver Tre Spivey’s six touchdowns on 11 touches this season: “His production has been off the charts, which is really exciting. That’s one of those things, we feel really good about the receiver room and the pieces we added there in the offseason. ... There’s a lot of people that can contribute in meaningful ways. The more you see Tre play, the more confidence he plays with, which is what you would hope.”

Brennan, on the message to the players and fans after two tough losses: “That’s the hardest thing about it. When you lose two games that way and it’s so hard and so challenging, the thing we talk to the players, ‘What choice do you have? You want to choose to believe that you can or you can’t?’ With this team, this team believes they can.

“That’s the way they showed up for work yesterday and that’s the way they’ll show up for work tomorrow. I understand everyone’s frustration, because everyone in here is frustrated, too. No one puts more into this thing than the players and coaches that are in the building. The care factor in this space is incredibly high — and so are the disappointments when you don’t get the results you want. ... If we stay the course, we will get it. We have to keep pounding the rock. Eventually, it’ll break.”

Brennan, on the “incredible challenge” of blocking out noise and criticism of the program: “It’s an incredible challenge in the world that these young people are growing up in, because the public scrutiny is so much more than when I played — or generations of the past played — because everybody has access to them through their phone.

“Everyone can tag them on social media. The important part for us moving forward is that we need to focus on the good things we did in those games. ... There’s so many positives. ‘What are you going to choose to focus on?’ There’s details and there’s things we need to fix as a coaching staff and emphasize and get tightened up with our players, but there’s also so many good things that we have to be excited about in that game and the BYU game and help the players see all of the positive things that are happening. Stay the course, it’s going to work for us. ‘Again, what choice do you have? How do you want to live?’”

Brennan, on former UA kicker Lucas Havrisik setting the Green Bay Packers’ franchise record with a 61-yard field goal against the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday: “Any time you have players that have come from your program and are playing in the National Football League, that’s a great thing for the program. ... The kicker path isn’t normally like Tyler Loop. Normally, those guys aren’t getting drafted. Normally they’re getting signed, then they cut and then they get picked up.

“To (Havrisik’s) credit, he has stayed with it and has established himself as a good player in that league at that position. I think it’s special. Any time you have a Wildcat playing in the National Football League, that’s exciting for us.”

UA-CU kickoff time moved to 6-day window

Arizona’s upcoming road game against the Colorado Buffaloes in Boulder, along with several other Big 12 football games, on Saturday, Nov. 1, has been moved to a six-day selection window.

The kickoff time and television broadcast for Arizona-Colorado will be announced either Saturday night or Sunday morning. Five other games are also on the six-day window, while the Oklahoma State-Kansas game is on Saturday at 1 p.m. on ESPN+.

Arizona and Colorado will meet in Boulder for their 28th all-time meeting. The series dates back to 1931. The Wildcats lost 12 straight to the Buffaloes from 1931-85 before beating the Buffaloes in Tucson in 1986.

The Wildcats and Buffaloes didn’t play each other again until CU became a Pac-12 member in 2011. Arizona went 9-4 against Colorado in the Pac-12 era and won three straight from 2017-19 with quarterback Khalil Tate, who set the single-game FBS rushing record for a quarterback with 327 yards in 2017.

Arizona won its previous matchup in Boulder after former UA kicker Tyler Loop made a walk-off field goal. The victory was part of Arizona’s seven-game winning streak to end the season.

In the first matchup in the Big 12 last season, Colorado dismantled Arizona 34-7 during homecoming weekend.