Arizona Has Areas They Need To Improve Ahead of Northern Arizona Matchup
The Arizona Wildcats came away from their season opener against the New Mexico Lobos with a 61-39 victory.
It was encouraging to see the offense cut through an overmatched New Mexico defense with ease, but the concerns defensively entering the year may have been worsened with that performance.
Head coach Brent Brennan spoke highly of their opponent, giving the Lobos and their quarterback Devon Dampier some credit, however, he did notice some things they did as a defense that allowed this contest to become a shootout.
I also think there are some things we can be a little more clean on in terms of our contain and some of those rush lanes,” he said on Monday, via Justin Spears of the Arizona Daily Star.
The rush defense was a strength of the Wildcats in 2023. They went from near the bottom of college football to a top-30 team.
That did not carry over to the season opener, though.
Dampier led the way on the ground, gaining 130 of the team’s 211 rushing yards against Arizona. The Wildcats struggled to contain him all evening, routinely getting gashed for chunk gains.
There has been an emphasis on stopping the run this week in practice.
“That’s something the defensive staff is hard at work cleaning up,” Brennan said. “We’ve been cleaning up (Sunday) and (Monday) and we’ll be ready to go this weekend.”
In addition to shoring things up in the trenches, the head coach implored his team to stop taking "selfish" penalties.
In total, three unsportsmanlike penalties were called against the Wildcats. Defensive back Tacario Davis had one on a kickoff in the first half and was ejected after an altercation with New Mexico wide receiver Luke Wysong in the fourth quarter.
The other 15-yarder was whistled against Genesis Smith, who took his helmet off in a celebration after an interception of Dampier in the second quarter.
“You can’t do that and win consistently,” Brennan said. “We can’t be so emotional that we fall off the cliff. We want to play with an edge and we want to walk up to the edge of the cliff, but we just can’t fall off it; a couple of times the other night, we did. We have to know that as we continue play throughout the season and the stakes get bigger and intensify, we can’t do things that hurt our chances to win. Educating them on that is really important ... We gotta do a great job in keeping our emotions in check and worrying about what’s best for the football team.”
Getting the victory in the season opener was nice, but the Wildcats have plenty of work to do heading into Week 2 against Northern Arizona.
If the defense shows the same form, they could be in for long games with matchups looming against Kansas State and Utah.
KENNETH TEAPE