Khalil Tate started, got hurt and had a minimal impact. It’s been a steep, stunning fall for 2017’s Mr. October. Freshman Jamarye Joiner replaced Tate for the third and fourth series but struggled to move the offense. He flashed his athleticism but didn’t see an open Tony Ellison for a would-be touchdown. Sophomore Rhett Rodriguez played the final series of the first half and all of the second. He operated the offense well under trying circumstances, put the Wildcats in position for points and threw his first career TD pass. He threw for 226 yards but completed only 52.6 percent of his passes.
Facing the best run defense in the Pac-12, tailbacks J.J. Taylor and Gary Brightwell combined for 82 yards on 21 carries. Running room was hard to find, so Taylor averaging 4.5 yards per attempt is actually fairly impressive. He couldn’t convert a fourth-and-1 in the fourth quarter. Brightwell averaged just 2.7 yards on his seven carries. Utah essentially took Arizona’s running backs out of the game by scoring on four of its first five possessions to take a 28-0 halftime lead.
Wide receivers accounted for 22 of Arizona’s 24 completed passes. Shun Brown led the way with eight receptions, but they netted only 43 yards. Cedric Peterson (4-63-1) and Devaughn Cooper (4-57) were the standouts – a good sign for a group that will lose three seniors after this season. One of them, Shawn Poindexter, had three catches for 39 yards but couldn’t come down with a Tate deep ball in the first quarter that might have changed the trajectory of the game.
Another rough night for this unit. The line again struggled to get push in the run game, and it allowed a season-high five sacks. Some of that was a product of QB inexperience, but the line also struggled to pick up pressures. It didn’t help that left tackle Layth Friekh had to leave the game in the second quarter because of ankle pain. OL coach Joe Gilbert went with a different look after Friekh went out, and it largely didn’t work.
Simply put, this group did not make enough plays when the outcome was still in question. Even if you exclude Mitch Wishnowsky’s 28-yard run on a fake punt, Utah eclipsed 200 yards on the ground. Arizona had two sacks, but one came courtesy of cornerback Lorenzo Burns. Defensive lineman PJ Johnson had the other, and his seven total tackles were the most for a non-defensive back. Utah’s scheme and blocking effectively neutralized top tacklers Colin Schooler and Tony Fields II (eight combined stops). Schooler did have an interception. JB Brown had two TFLs.
Whether playing man or zone, the secondary struggled. Utah passers – including receiver Britain Covey – completed 72.7 percent of their throws and averaged 12.0 yards per attempt. Safety Jarrius Wallace had a team-high eight tackles but gotten beaten deep more than once. Cornerback Tim Hough surrendered a touchdown on the opening series. Burns finished with eight tackles. Safety Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles had seven tackles, including one for a loss, and a pass breakup.
Josh Pollack again split a pair of field-goal attempts, missing a 34-yarder at the end of the first half. The snap from Nick Reinhardt to Jake Glatting was slightly high. Lucas Havrisik booted all three of his kickoffs into the end zone for touchbacks. Punter Dylan Klumph had a solid game (41.8-yard average on five punts), and the coverage was sound. The punt-return unit was caught off guard on Wishnowsky’s 28-yard dash in the fourth quarter.
The Wildcats weren’t ready to compete at the outset, and it isn’t the first time that’s been the case. Kevin Sumlin and Noel Mazzone are handicapped by the QB and OL situations but aren’t coming up with viable alternatives either. Arizona’s play-calling and execution in short-yardage scenarios leaves a lot to be desired. While Sumlin seemed to be aware of Utah’s fake-punt tendency after the game, that wasn’t communicated to the players at the time. After making all the right adjustments the previous week against Cal, defensive coordinator Marcel Yates had no answers for Utah’s attack.
