It was an up and down game for Arizona against No. 18 BYU on Saturday. The Wildcats fell behind 14-0, before a 75-minute weather delay paused action between the first and second quarter. Arizona responded, taking a 24-14 lead early in the fourth quarter, before ultimately dropping a heartbreaker to the Cougars in double-overtime. Here’s everything Arizona head coach Brent Brennan, as well as quarterback Noah Fifita and defensive back Treydan Stukes said postgame following the 33-27 loss to No. 18 BYU.
Brent Brennan:
Brent Brennan’s initial thoughts on the double-overtime loss to No. 18 BYU:
“When I look at this game, and just coming right off the field now, to me, I look at it – we just battled the first-place team in the Big 12 for four quarters and two overtimes, and we never backed down. Now we didn’t get the result we want, but those kids played their hearts out, and that is something to be excited about.
Now, the goal is to win, and I understand that, but we’re a better football team, and we’re halfway through the season. We have a lot to work on, but we also have a lot to feel good about. And so when I look at this thing, going into it, we knew it was going to be a physical battle. That was one of those things that we talked about all week. We knew our effort was going to have to be Redline. The thing that’s so hard about it is that we didn’t get it done. And so, that’s something that – we talk about Redline accountability, that starts with me, and that’s everybody in the facility. And so we’ll go to work on fixing those things and get ready for the next one.
But I thought there were moments there where Noah was playing great football, and we were making plays, and we found some running game. You know, people that hadn’t run the ball on them, like that. I thought that was positive. And then also, I thought our defense played their tails off, you know, held them scoreless for two quarters. That hadn’t happened in 30-plus quarters.
So there’s a lot of things to be excited about. Obviously, it’s still pretty fresh and pretty raw. So like, that’s the hard part for me right now, standing up here in front of everybody, but I’m proud of this football team. I think we’re making progress. I’m sick about the result tonight, but I believe in these players, I believe in these coaches, and I’m excited about what’s coming the next couple weeks.
Brent Brennan on the crowd that stayed through the 75-minute weather delay:
“First of all, I want to say thank you to our fans. Stuck through another weather delay, and I thought they did a great job. It was awesome. You know, it’s awesome late in the game, there in overtime, just the energy they provided. The ZonaZoo was was on fire once again, and so many of those young people stayed through the rain and the bad weather. So I just want to say thank you to all of them.”
Brent Brennan on overcoming a 14-point deficit, before letting the game slip away:
“Yeah, I think, obviously it’s incredibly disappointing, right? We’re down 14 points. Make some plays, we rally back, we come out of the weather delay and really dig in and get in what – you know, the interesting about weather delays that happen is there’s still three quarters left of football to play. So there’s so much football left to play, and I thought our team did a great job of answering the call in that moment. The hard part is at the end of the game, we had a chance to end it offensively, and we had a chance to end it defensively, and neither side of the ball did.”
Brent Brennan on Arizona’s struggles in the red zone:
“I think it’s a combination of BYU being a good football team, and I think it’s also a combination of just us not executing on the level we need to when we get down to the red zone. And obviously we had an opportunity to score touchdown in overtime that gets called back. So those things are those things you can’t do, those things you can’t do if you’re gonna win big time football games like tonight was.:
Brent Brennan on not electing to kick a field goal on the first drive of the second half:
“I just felt like we were playing a good football team. And I felt like, you know, I liked how our defense was playing every time. And so, those things are a little bit – it’s a combination of analytics and combination of field, and so you also saw us benefit from going for it on fourth down on multiple drives in this game. So that’s the that’s the hard part about it. If you get it, everyone’s like, ‘yay.’ If you don’t, everyone’s like, ‘what are you doing?'”
Brent Brennan on the conservative play-calling at the end of the first half and regulation:
“Both those situations are incredibly different. They’re not the same just because there’s 20 seconds on the clock. At the end of the first half, we know we’re getting the ball coming out of halftime. So, there’s no reason for us to take a shot, put Noah at risk, turn it over, let them be in position, and swing in the field goal right before the half.
At the end of the game, same thing, knowing that they’re going to play crazy prevent (defense). It’s going to be really hard to complete a ball because they’re going to drop eight, and they’re going to have a flat top, umbrella on the top of the coverage. And so that at that moment, I was like, let’s go win it over time.”
Brent Brennan on breakout performances from running back Kedrick Reescano and wide receiver Kris Hutson:
“Those are real positives. Ked has been sidelined a little bit with some injury stuff, but it was great to see him run the ball with physicality and the play-making that we think he’s capable of. And then, Kris Hutson, it was great to see him get going. And I think he’s also had some injury stuff that slowed him during training camp and throughout this season. But tonight is the night where I’m like, ‘oh, there he is. That’s the play maker that we know you to be.’ And I expect more from Kris Hutson going forward.”
Brent Brennan on Javin Whatley’s incompletion on the final play of the game:
“We just need to complete the ball.”
Brent Brennan on not letting this loss snowball into a losing streak:
“To me, it’s getting back to work, it’s getting back to Redline, it’s getting back to the things that got us off with a four and one start. It’s what gave us a chance to beat the number 18 team in the country tonight. I know we didn’t do it, but we’re right there knocking on the door. You know what I mean? And so, as disheartening as tonight was, to me there’s a lot of positive in that game, and we need to be excited about that too. Like I want us to be pissed off by that thing, and we should be. But, we should be excited about also the fact that we stood toe-to-toe with one of the most physical teams in our conference and slugged it out into double overtime.”
Brent Brennan on Dalton Johnson’s performance:
“Dalton Johnson is a leader, he’s a great player, he’s an awesome human being, and he’s a die-hard Wildcat. He’s been here through all of it, right? He’s been here, you know, this is year six, and he’s just one of those guys that continues to show up every day, continues to lead, continues to be a positive voice for the football team, continues to make plays on game day.
I can’t say enough positive things about about Dalton. Just an awesome, awesome player, awesome human being. And I think the great thing about who he is, like, he’s going to be upset about how this thing ended, too, and he’s going to push the team to go to work and get to fix it. And that’s what we need. We need, because I can yell and scream all day, but we need the guys in that locker room to say, ‘we’re not letting that happen again,’ and go to work on fixing it.”
Noah Fifita:
Noah Fifita on Arizona giving up its 24-24 lead in the fourth quarter:
“Obviously, you never want to lose and it hurts, but at the end of the day, football is a game momentum, and there were momentum shifts in the game. But I thought there was, like ‘Stukies’ said, that we had chances to ice the game. We had chances to keep the momentum on our side, or bring the momentum back, and we missed those opportunities.”
Noah Fifita on Arizona’s struggles inside red zone:
“In the red zone, everything gets faster, so you’ve got to be super detailed. You’ve got to be on time with everything, with steps, with footwork, timing, everything, and obviously ball placement. So I think we miss a lot of opportunities, especially on my part. I know I missed two throws on I think our second red zone drive down by the Jumbotron. So those are opportunities you can’t miss. And at the end of the day, the red zone told the story.”
Treydan Stukes:
Treydan Stukes on Arizona giving up its 24-24 lead in the fourth quarter:
“Definitely a little sick. You know, we had a lot of chances to finish the game how we wanted to, (but we) left some stuff on the field. But you can’t go back in time, so we’ve got to watch film, get back to it tomorrow.”
Treydan Stukes on Arizona’s defense getting back into the game after an early 14-0 hole:
“Yeah, just, you know, taking that breath, trusting our training. You know, we work for these moments, and the game plan was good, so we just fell back on what we practiced all week. You know, we were able to execute. And, you know, they got us on some stuff, you know, we go back to the drawing board and try and fix it.”
Treydan Stukes on the mental toughness and character Arizona showed in the game:
“We got some high-character guys on this team, and our motto is Redline. Get back to Redline, and one of our main pillars in that is responding – owning it and fixing it, the things that you messed up. So we’ve been talking about response all year, and especially this week, we knew, you know, it’s going to be a big time game, a dog fight. So we’ve been talking about responding all week, and I thought the guys did a really good job of that.”