Noah Fifita Takes Blame for Not Getting Other Arizona Receivers Involved
In terms of fireworks, the Arizona Wildcats certainly provided that in the season opener on Saturday.
Their offense was able to cut through New Mexico's defense en route to putting up over 60 points, but they will definitely have to work on their defense after they couldn't get a stop outside of coming up with a turnover.
Still, Arizona will take a win whenever they get it, especially in the first game of the Brent Brennan era.
From a national perspective, all the attention is going to be centered around the completely dominant and historic performance their superstar wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan had.
With 10 catches for 304 yards and four touchdowns, he set Arizona's single-game record for receiving yards and tied the program record for most touchdowns caught in a game. He also became only the fourth player in Big 12 Conference history to go over the 300-yard mark.
While it was awesome to see McMillan destroy an opposing defense, there is also the question if that is sustainable throughout the year and against the top teams on their schedule.
When taking out the production of their star, the rest of the wide receivers combined for four catches and 36 yards. Outside of McMillan, seven players caught a total of nine balls for 118 yards, with 63 of them going to the running back position.
There were questions about who was going to step into the secondary role on the other side of their elite preseason All-American, and on Saturday, it was clear they are still searching for those answers.
But when discussing the lack of production from the other wide receivers, quarterback Noah Fifita took the blame in his conversation with Michael Lev of The Arizona Daily Star, saying it's on him to get the other receivers involved.
The good news is the Wildcats have another tune up game against Northern Arizona before they get into a tough part of their schedule against Kansas State and Utah.
Hopefully, the offense is able to work on making others a factor during practice and Fifita gets more comfortable looking their way.
While this performance was incredible by McMillan, Brennan knows he will have a hard time replicating it if teams don't fear the other receiving options on this team.
Expect the likes of Jeremiah Patterson, Montana Lemonious-Craig, Malachi Riley and even tight end Keyan Burnett to be targeted at a much higher rate this upcoming Saturday.
BRAD WAKAI