Shortly after Arizona’s home loss to Texas Tech on Saturday night, Brent Brennan made multiple references in his postgame press conferences to it looking like some Wildcats went the wrong way on certain offensive plays.
Brennan and his staff broke down the film on Sunday, and he was able to identify which players were at fault:
“Everybody,” the UA head coach said Monday. “I would say just too many missed assignments. Missed assignments or improper technique at the point of attack.”
Arizona’s offense had its lowest grade of the season, per Pro Football Focus, squandering a strong defensive effort and Tyler Loop’s school-record five field goals. The Wildcats made it into Texas Tech territory on 10 of 14 possessions, getting inside the 35-yard line nine times, yet only found the end zone once.
“That was something that we really dove into yesterday, getting in the red zone seven times and only scoring one touchdown,” Brennan said. “We kind of took that a little bit above the 25 for us, just when we’re down there we gotta make people pay. And we didn’t. It was some missed reads. It was some small details, like I mentioned on Saturday night, stuff that I think is absolutely fixable. Small detail, big impact. One guy goes the wrong way and they have an unblocked player at the corner of attack. I think those things are fixable. And I’m encouraged by how our team showed up for work today, and they’re deadass serious about getting those things fixed.”
Here’s what else Brennan said as Arizona begins preparations for this week’s game at No. 14 BYU, its third consecutive ranked opponent on the road:
On Noah Fifita’s struggles: “I think we’ve played good people. When we’re talking about his process and his decision making, I think there’s some things that we can fix, but I also think to me that’s coaching. We’re the ones that have to get him in the right place with his progression and delivering the ball on time. That’s on us.”
On Fifita’s interception in the end zone: “That’s one of those situations where he just has to go through his progressions and trust it. Obviously we all have a ton of faith in T-Mac and his ability to play a vertical ball. And so in that situation, we just have to go through our progression and go where our eyes tell us they should go. The ball needs to go where our eyes tell us they should go.”
On if Fifita’s confidence is waning: “I don’t think so. I think our confidence comes from our preparation, and his preparation has been so good. A week ago he throws a couple incredible balls that won us that game. I think that’s one of the dangers of the game, is letting the outcome dictate how you feel about yourself and not being objective about the mistakes that we made, and fixing those. So I think for Noah, his preparation is always extremely on point. He was in here yesterday, he’s such a competitor, he’s such a great leader, and he’s also one of those guys that always wants to take accountability for not getting the job done. Which is I think why the team loves him and why we all love him and why we would do anything for him.”
On the jumbo package struggling: “I think in one of those situations is when we had something to go the wrong way, otherwise on the fourth down play it would have been first down. But that has been a good thing for us this year, that formation. With some of the shuffling of the deck, with some of the pieces in the offensive line that kind of swapped out because guys are getting dinged up or whatever, trying to give us a chance to run the football effectively out of that front. We just need to get a yard, or we need to get six inches. We have to be able to get that. Moving guys around in practice and giving them ... playing with some possible scenarios of substitution that we experienced Saturday night, so that we have a little bit of continuity on that. It’s hard, because you don’t want to be in that spot, but if someone goes down sometimes you’re moving players around.”
On if that impacted the decision not to go for it at Texas Tech 14: “In that moment, this gives us a chance take the lead. Tyler was hitting the ball so well, I felt like it was a momentum game there. And so I was just thinking that that was our best option.”
On if Loop’s range and effectiveness is affecting play calling: “No. We’re trying to score touchdowns.”
On BYU: “They’re a good football team. I think it’s an interesting situation where, coming into this conference, our last four games have all been against really good (teams). All (teams) that are one loss or better. And so going on the road, in a hostile environment, they’re extremely physical. They’re very well coached. They play hard. To me in some ways, like physicality wise, they’re similar to what you experience when you play Utah.”
On if he expects any injured players to be out for the year: “Right now, I don’t know that. I’m not gonna talk about injuries, I’ve covered that ad nauseam. But whenever anybody gets injured it’s just another opportunity for someone else to play. Someone else has to go in there and do get the job done for the football team. I think that’s an important thing that our players are grabbing hold off. I think we’ve seen some guys do a really good job of that, and there’s going to be some other people that step into those roles and execute at a high level.”
On potential redshirt decisions: “ I don’t know yet. That depends on how, how the season plays out. If they’re a freshman do we get them in four games? If they’re playing a lot, do we just get them in the game and let them play? Because we still have ton of football left to play.”
On players announcing injuries/redshirt decisions on social media: “I’m not into censoring young people. I want them to make sensible decisions online.”
On day games vs. night games: “I like getting up and playing. I think I prefer that than to just kind of waiting all day. It’s hard, although, now most of our games have (been) played at night. My last three stops as a coach, they’ve all been a ton of night games because of television and being on West Coast.”
On his relationship with BYU coach Kalani Sitake: “Kalani and I worked together in 2015 at Oregon State, and we lived in the same neighborhood. He’s one of my favorite people on the planet. He’s just an incredible human being, great father, great husband, great football coach. And it was so fun, because our kids would just run around the neighborhood, 10 years ago now. My oldest was 11; 11, nine and seven, and so they’re just running the neighborhood, our two families. And it was great, they’d show up at their house for dinner, and then they’d send the whole crew would end up at our house for ice cream.”
On the defense: “I’m really excited where we’re at. I thought Saturday night, they did so many, so many good things that we were so excited about. And I think the cool thing about it is everybody on the team, on that side of the ball, and our offensive side of the ball, is looking at the small details that had a huge impact in that game, that we could have easily fixed. I love where our defense is at. I think they’re playing with real energy and physicality. It’s really, really exciting. And I think there’s a couple of plays we’d all like back. And that’s what happens when you don’t win a football game. It happens when you do win, you always want plays back.”
On if the offensive issues are due to personnel or coaching: “I think it’s both, but it absolutely starts with the coaching, and it starts with me. I have to assess, are we asking guys to do stuff they can’t do? This is all the stuff we dove into yesterday. Do we have too much scheme? Our ability to execute what we’re doing is based on how well we know it. And sometimes that happens when you have a player that gets thrown in there because of an injury, and that can be a little bit tricky because he hasn’t had as many reps as a first team player. But at the same time, it doesn’t matter, everyone’s expecting you to go in there and execute.”
On playing at elevation for the second time in 3 weeks?: “I think elevation is one of those things that if you let it be an excuse, it is. They got to play in it too. And we’re in a little bit of elevation, too. For our team I think it’s not as big a factor.”