Arizona Football: Everything You Need to Know About the Utah Game

The Utah Utes have had a season to remember thus far while the Arizona Football team would relish just one more win to become bowl eligible.

Here are the standings for the Pac-12 by division.

http://pac-12.com/team/arizona-football

The Utes

Utah’s current team goal is to be the Champs of the Pac-12 South, and then they’ll focus on moving forward towards the National Championship.

But is the team looking past the Wildcats? The answer is no, unfortunately. The fact that Utah has lost the last three games to Arizona is not lost on the coach either.

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On the Pac-12 conference call, Coach Whittingham explained that he is focused on Arizona, and he is concerned about the Wildcats running game. “What makes them [Arizona] dangerous is that they’ve had our number for the last three years,” he said, “They’ve kicked our butt the last three years, that’s the danger, we’ve had no answer for their run game..and they are running the football exceptionally well again this year, nearly 250 yards a game so we’ve got our hands full, and our work cut out for us.”

Whittingham also explained what is it like coaching a winning team? “When you’re losing your team is much more fragile and you have to be careful how you handle them..when you’re winning, they have bought in and they’ll believe in what you’re doing and really they’ll pay attention to pretty much whatever you say,” said Whittingham, “You’re part psychologist when you are a coach there’s no doubt about that, you gotta be tuned in..it’s just a matter of you having a good feel for where your guys are at and what hot buttons to push and how to handle them.”

Oct 31, 2015; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Utah Utes running back Devontae Booker (23) carries the ball during the second half against the Oregon State Beavers at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Utah won 27-12. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

Utah’s head coach also had some comments about wide receiver Britain Covey, “He’s leading the team in receptions..he’s created a spark for us and not only as a receiver but in the punt return game. He’s leading the conference by a wide margin in punt returns as far as just yards gained in the punt returns..he’s been a big bright spot for us…he has exceeded expectations.”

Pac-12 Notes:

Senior RB Devontae Booker rushed for 150 yards 34 carries (4.4 Avg) in the win at Washington. It was his sixth 100-yard rushing game this season and 13th of his career. He has now rushed for 1,116 yards this season, the 15th 1,000 yard rushing season by a Ute. Booker now ranks fourth all-time at Utah with 2,628 career rushing yards.
Senior QB Travis Wilson has set the school record for most starts ever by a Utah quarterback with 35. Wilson’s 22 career wins is second all-time, trailing the 26 wins by Brian Johnson (2004-05, 07-08).

The Wildcats

Also on this week’s Pac-12 Coaches Teleconference, a lot of questions were answered by head coach Rich Rodriguez, especially questions about the players, how the coaches are leading them and the energy in the locker room. The answers might surprise you.

Coach Rich Rodriguez was asked by Ted Miller of ESPN if he uses a pat on the back or fire and a brimstone mentality to motivate his team. “Probably Both. I’ve done both. I’ve tried everything. You want to try to be as positive as possible, but there are certain things that you know fire and brimstone, if the guys are starting to feel sorry for themselves, or they need a kind of a wake-up call. But if they’re playing with good effort and giving me all the attention they’re supposed to have, then you can stay positive with it.”

Sep 19, 2015; Tucson, AZ, USA; Arizona Wildcats head coach Rich Rodriguez talks to quarterback Anu Solomon (12) during the first quarter against the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks at Arizona Stadium. Arizona won 77-13. Mandatory Credit: Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports

Coach Rodriguez offered his thoughts on team’s performance in the game against USC, “In the last game, in particular, I thought the effort was pretty good. I thought their focus was pretty good. We just didn’t execute when we needed to,” he said, “So we’ve been doing both for a little bit, and I think our guys kind of expect when they are not doing everything right that we’re going to stay on them but the same time they gotta know that we still believe in ’em. That we, and not just coaches but players, got to believe in each other too, and I think they still think that.”

We’ve been waiting to hear this for a long time. Throughout the middle of the season, the team went through a lot of adversity, and fans wondered how the coaching staff was motivating the players if at all. There were assumptions made that the team gave up; they didn’t have heart, that the locker room was a hot mess. Did the coaches rule with an iron fist or did the constructive criticism come with some tender loving care? Now we have the answer, and the answer is both.

For the first time, Coach Rodriguez explained just how tenuous the situation is at this point and reinforced the team’s goals.

“Well, I think it’s, from a coach-speak standpoint, it’s just been execution in key times..we’re not deep enough or good enough to play poorly and win. So we gotta play well and then we gotta play well at key moments particularly late in the game..what happened in the last game, we played well at times but we didn’t play well enough in the fourth quarter at key times to pull out the win.”

Arizona Football: Everything You Need to Know About the Utah Game

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