Last week against BYU, Arizona made all the plays needed to win. Until it didn’t.
The double OT loss to the Cougars was painful insomuch as it didn’t have to be a loss. In fact, given that the Wildcats were up 10 halfway through the fourth quarter and had multiple chances to put the game away only to come up short, you could argue the game should have been a win.
But it wasn’t, and Brent Brennan’s team once again failed to earn a signature win, the kind that would have changed perceptions of the program.
So now with Arizona at 4-2 and 1-2 in the Big 12 the question is whether or not the loss will change the projection of the season.
Around this time two years ago the Wildcats were in a similar spot, having lost a very winnable game to a team that was ranked at the time but likely not as good as that ranking suggested. Arizona’s loss to USC happened in triple OT and afterwards there were thoughts of moral victories but also opportunities lost.
Future success was hardly a sure thing, and at the time I even wrote a piece titled “Jedd Fisch hasn’t won enough yet not to have his decisions questioned” after there were some very interesting and, well, questionable coaching decisions in that game.
That’s not to say this year’s team is the same as that year’s, because it most certainly isn’t. That team had more star talent that the team could lean on, such as receivers Jacob Cowing and Tetairoa McMillan along with Tanner McLachlan and an impressive stable of running backs. There were also multiple NFL players on the offensive line and the secondary had an incredible amount of talent.
This year’s team, on the other hand, is not without good players or even NFL talent, but seems to rely on different players each week while the coaching staff still tries to truly understand what it has.
Early-season injuries slowed the process and when you have more than 60 new players it could take a bit of time to get everything exactly right. But we’ve seen flashes and enough to know that this team is capable of competing, and when you’re capable of competing you are certainly capable of winning.
Back to that ’23 loss to USC. We didn’t know it at the time, but that was the last time Arizona would lose that season. Rather than get down about losing a game they shouldn’t have, the Wildcats instead used it as evidence that they were indeed a good team and carried that confidence into the next game and beyond.
The hope is this year’s squad will take something similar from Saturday’s loss to BYU.
“Obviously on Sunday, you would think, you know, with that type of loss, you know, our kids would be would be down,” offensive coordinator Seth Doege said this week. “It’s probably the most energetic Sunday I’ve been a part of.
“Not because they don’t care, just because they got a lot of confidence and they would they know they should have won that game.”
Of course there is a difference between knowing you should have won a game and, you know, actually winning the game. If Arizona had more talent it would be able to survive its miscues and bad luck, both of which were in abundance late against BYU.
But at this point in the rebuild, it does not have that kind of talent. Given that it’s Arizona, it may rarely have it.
And yet, the Cats should have beaten a top-20 team that ostensibly does.
“This is a good football team in Tucson,” defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales said. “Are we great yet? We are not. Are we elite yet? We are not.”
Fair assessment, and he continued with really what is the most important part of the conversation as the team embarks on the second half of the season.
“Can we get there between now and the end of the season?” Gonzales asked. “We can if they keep attacking it. And I said this way back then, too. You don’t have to have the most talent; you have to have enough. And we have enough talent to be a good football team.”
This may be a bit of coachspeak, and to be fair I at least could listen to Gonzales speak for hours and be both informed and entertained. At the same time the stats do tell the story of a pretty good — but not great — team.
As of now Arizona is eighth in the Big 12 in sacks and first in interceptions. Offensively the Cats are eighth in the conference in points per game and sixth in time of possession, while ranking in the middle of most other offensive categories.
If this is more of a progression than the end then it stands to reason Arizona has better football in its future. A perfect performance may be unattainable, but a confident team that has, as Gonzales said, enough talent can give itself a chance to win most every time it takes the field. That kind of team will not be down after one loss or be fazed by an early start time like this weekend’s at Houston.
The last time we saw Arizona it lost a game it should have won. Had a play here, a bounce there or a questionable call by an official gone differently the result may have been different. The coaches and players all know this, and the question we all need to have answered is how each of them responds.
The last time Arizona coughed up a game to a ranked opponent we got to watch them respond by running the table. No such expectation should be in place for this team, but the point is the loss to BYU does not need to define this year’s Wildcats.
Instead, the hope is that it propels them.
