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

Different location, same result.

Arizona was in a position to win, but found itself on the losing end in heartbreaking fashion for the second straight week. The Wildcats’ latest setback was a 31-28 loss to Houston.

Twenty-seven points was enough to beat the Cougars last season in Tucson. Twenty-eight wasn’t enough at TDECU Stadium on Saturday.

Houston kicker Ethan Sanchez knocked down a walk-off 42-yard field goal to secure the win for the Cougars — and send Arizona back to Tucson with a 4-3 record. Houston’s (6-1) triumph has the Cougars bowl eligible for the first time since 2022.

As for Arizona, the Wildcats have now lost back-to-back games since starting 4-1, which was the program’s best start since 2019. UA fell in double overtime to 18th-ranked BYU last week. In both games, the Cats had a lead.

Both of Arizona’s most recent losses ended on the final play of the game. The nail in the coffin for UA against BYU was an incomplete pass in the corner of the end zone in the second overtime period, while Saturday’s death knell was Arizona losing by a walk-off field goal for the first time since its loss to Oregon State in 2008.

“That was a really tough day,” said Arizona head coach Brent Brennan. “This team is hurting right now. ... Obviously, I’m pissed off and upset — and so is everyone in this program because I think we have grown a lot and we’ve made a ton of progress. But to not close that thing out when we had every opportunity to today, it just makes every person in here sick. It starts with me. That’s my job.”

Here are notable storylines, statistics and quotes from Arizona’s loss to Houston, along with an injury report and a look at what’s next for the Wildcats.

Cougars out-run Cats

Arizona’s offense caught fire early and scored on its first two drives.

UA quarterback Noah Fifita avoided a sack on third down and darted a pass over the middle to wide receiver Tre Spivey, who avoided an ankle tackle by Houston cornerback Latrell McCutchin Sr. and burst for a 70-yard touchdown.

Following a 13-yard touchdown pass from Fifita to wide receiver Luke Wysong, the Wildcats took a 14-7 lead, then had a chance to take a two-score lead at the start of the second quarter after forcing Houston to punt twice.

Arizona’s offense stalled on back-to-back drives and punted twice before a turnover on downs in the second quarter.

After running back and Houston-area native Kedrick Reescano was tackled just short of the first down, Arizona quickly lined up for a fourth-and-1 play on the Houston 31-yard line, but a zone-read handoff to Reescano was stuffed at the line of scrimmage for a fourth-down stop — the only one of the day for Houston; the Wildcats were 2-for-3.

“We didn’t execute the plays that we needed to make and there’s a handful of them that would’ve changed the game,” Fifita said. “I think it’s been a repetitive thing and now we have a bye week to clean it up. ... We probably could’ve scored on that drive and there probably wouldn’t have been enough time for Houston to score at the end of the half. I gotta pull the ball and get the first down myself. That’s one of the plays I made that would’ve changed the outcome.”

Houston converted the stop into a nine-play, 69-yard scoring drive capped by a 15-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Conner Weigman to tight end Tanner Koziol. Instead of Arizona with a two-score lead, the Cougars led 21-14 at halftime.

“I felt like a huge momentum swing was when we didn’t get the fourth down there when we went for it deep in the red zone, and that ended up giving points on the backside of that,” Brennan said.

Arizona went scoreless from the 6:18 mark in the first quarter to 14:55 in the fourth quarter, albeit the Wildcats only had two possessions in the second half.

Between the second and third quarter, Houston had three straight scoring drives and took a 28-14 lead. The Cougars had 24 rushing attempts in those three drives, which had 39 total plays and took up over 16 minutes of game clock. Houston’s 17-play drive in the third quarter is tied for its longest drive of the season.

Following a short pass from Weigman to Houston running back Dean Connors, which would’ve had the Cougars at third-and-8, Arizona wide receivers coach Bobby Wade was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct and sideline interference.

“I’ll tell you this, there’s no person on our staff and our program or athletic department that’s worthy of 15 (yards),” Brennan said. “Nobody. Not me, not Coach Wade, nobody. That’s ridiculous. We’re going to address that, too.”

Weigman rushed for a career-high 98 yards and a touchdown on 14 rush attempts. Houston had 232 rushing yards on Saturday.

Between Weigman and BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier, the Wildcats have allowed a combined 187 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns in the last two games. Arizona surrendered a combined 490 rushing yards against BYU and Houston, the most in a two-game stretch since the TCU and Arizona State games to end last season.

Houston had 232 rushing yards to Arizona’s 112 on Saturday. In the second quarter alone, Houston had 96 rushing yards while Arizona had minus-2. Fourteen of Houston’s 24 first downs were rushing plays, and the Cougars averaged 5.2 yards per carry.

“We weren’t doing what we were supposed to do,” said Arizona linebacker Max Harris, who had a career-high 13 tackles, along with a pass breakup and a quarterback hit. “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.”

Added Brennan: “I think we played two good football teams, for starters. Also, both of them played plus-one in run with a quarterback run. It’s different than just lining it up and handing it to the tailback. ... We’re going to see that the rest of the season, so we better figure that out — today.”

Arizona has two notable opponents with mobile quarterbacks in Colorado and Cincinnati. The Bearcats have Brendan Sorsby, who has the second-most rushing yards by a quarterback in the Big 12 this season. Between Sorsby and running backs Evan Pryor and Tawee Walker, the Bearcats have three of the Big 12’s top 16 rushers this season.

Colorado quarterback Kaidon Salter has the second-most rushing yards at Colorado this season with 270 yards and five touchdowns. Salter has runs of 35, 24 and 21 yards this season.

Fifita’s historic day

Fifita completed 24 of 26 passes (92.3%) for 289 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. It’s the best single-game completion rate in school history (with a minimum of 20 pass attempts). It tied Khalil Tate for the best single-game completion percentage (with a minimum of 10 pass attempts).

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

“How many times does that ever happen in college football?” Brennan asked. “That’s a ridiculous day.”

Nine times, actually.

Fifita’s 92.3% completion rate is the third-best for a college quarterback on the road since 1996. The only two quarterbacks ahead of Fifita are Sean Renfree and Jameis Winston, and Arizona offensive coordinator and former Texas Tech quarterback Seth Doege is sixth on the list from his 40-of-44 performance against New Mexico in 2011.

Fifita completed his first seven attempts, then completed 10 straight passes between the first and third quarter. Fifita’s only two incompletions on Saturday were broken up by McCutchin and defensive end Eddie Walls III.

“It was a great game plan, a great scheme,” Fifita said. “Coach Doege put us in great positions to succeed. At the end of the day, the only stat that matters is winning, and we didn’t get that done. There’s a few plays that I wish I could have back that would’ve changed the game, but like I said, you just gotta learn from it.”

Fifita also made history and passed Tom Tunnicliffe for the third-most career passing yards (7,515) by a Wildcat. Fifita trails only Nick Foles and Willie Tuitama for the most career yards in UA history.

“What’s happening is the synergy between Noah and Coach Doege and the offense continues to accelerate,” Brennan said. “The more we play, the more we know each other, the more we get into the flow of things and I think Noah is trusting the offense and Coach Doege and you’re seeing good results. But dammit, we want to win. We want to win the damn game.”

‘These kids are fighting their asses off’

Arizona is now 1-6 on the road under Brennan. Saturday marked 385 days since the Wildcats won their last road game, which was the Big 12 opener against Utah last season.

Including the win over Utah, the Wildcats have been outscored 257-131 in road games under Brennan. Arizona entered Saturday with an average margin of defeat of 27.2 points in the previous six road games.

Unlike the previous losses, Saturday came down to the last play.

In the checkboxes for Arizona’s “redline” mantra, the effort was present. That was evident in the Wildcats coming back from two scores in the fourth quarter; the execution was not. The accountability part comes next.

Part I of “redline” gives Brennan optimism for the near — and longterm — future.

“This team has a ton of fight,” Brennan said. “This team is a great group of kids. The kids love the U of A, they love each other, they love this program. I think a lot of people say that, and it’s lip service. It’s B.S. when people say it. When we say it, it’s real. We mean it. All of these kids chose to stay or they chose to come because they believe in what’s happening and they believe in the institution. That fight didn’t surprise me at all.

“I loved it and I’m just crushed that we couldn’t get a stop there when we needed to, to try and turn it back the other way. ... They play hard for each other, there’s no question about that. That shows up every week, and the way they responded in this game was fantastic. A week ago, we were down by two touchdowns and came roaring back. These kids are fighting their asses off. We’re going to have a good football team.”

By the numbers

0: Fifita didn’t throw an interception on the road for the first time since the loss to UCF last November.

1-6: Arizona’s record in October under Brennan.

6: Touchdowns by Spivey on 11 touches this season.

49: Average yards per punt for Isaac Lovison, Arizona’s Australian punter. Lovison had a 57-yard punt that bounced out of bounds at the 4-yard line.

112: Arizona’s rushing yards against Houston were the most by the Wildcats on the road since the BYU game last October.

They said it

Brennan, on the message to the team after the game: “My message to the team is that we have a good football team. We lost to two really good teams on the last play of the game. As much as that hurts, the good news is that we can fix it. The easiest errors to fix are assignment errors. If you get beat by a better player, like I’m trying to cover Michael Jordan, he’s going to score a lot of points on me. Sometimes that happens in football, if you’re playing against someone that’s better than you. I don’t think that’s the case the last two weeks. I think we showed that we can play with these people.”

Harris, on Arizona’s upcoming bye week: “Get back to redline. When something good happens, redline. When something bad happens, redline. Obviously something bad happened today, so we’re going to fix it and work on what we can work on and attack the week.”

Fifita, on Spivey’s two-touchdown performance: “He continues to get more confident and more comfortable. When he knows the play and he has no doubt in his mind that he knows what he’s doing, he’s unstoppable. You’re starting to see him get more comfortable in the offense. He’s a playmaker. Every jump ball, it’s really 70-30 his. I love Spivey as a person, I love him as a player, but it all goes back to the team and we didn’t get it done today.”

Fifita, on the current state of the Wildcats after back-to-back losses: “This team loves each other. This team knows we’re good. It doesn’t matter what people say because the people in our building, the people in our locker room believe. At the end of the day, that’s what matters because we’re the ones on the field. There’s no doubt this one hurts. The last two weeks hurt, for sure. We still love each other and still believe in each other. At the end of the day, we have a lot more football left. On to the next.”

Injury report

Arizona wide receiver Chris Hunter was listed as a game-time decision on the Arizona-Houston availability report, but played and alternated drives. Arizona’s starting receiving trio was Spivey, Kris Hutson and Javin Whatley. Hunter wasn’t targeted on Saturday. Whatley led the Wildcats with seven catches for 42 yards.

What’s next

Arizona enters its second bye week of the season before a five-game stretch against Colorado, Kansas, No. 24 Cincinnati, Baylor and Arizona State. Arizona’s last two home games of the season are against Kansas and Baylor.

The Wildcats travel to Boulder for their matchup with Colorado (3-4) on Saturday, Nov. 1.

“We have a bye week, which is good because we need to practice,” Brennan said. “We need to get better at tackling and blocking and playing freaking football. ... We’re going to get back to work. I feel for our fans, I feel for our players, I feel for our students and everyone at the U of A because we have a good football team. We’re going to get to work fixing it. We have a ton of football left to play. I believe in this team, I believe in these kids and we’re going to get to work.”