Arizona Football: Loss to Stanford stings Wildcats because they care

Arizona Football’s loss to Stanford a better showing than last season, just a huge bummer that the team’s post-game emotions explain their situation in a nutshell, it stung.

With high hopes after a bye week, Arizona Football started the game pretty even with the Stanford Cardinal. The score on the jumbo board showed zero next to both teams through the first quarter.

Hope was still alive for the Cats; the defense held their own and the offense made some progress although they didn’t get into the end zone. Rich Rod chalked it up to a rusty starting quarterback, “Had some protection issues, turnovers — he’s a good player and probably not 100 percent.”

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It was the second quarter that things started to turn sour when Christian McCaffrey turned on his jets. He played almost every down, grabbing balls in the air and running through holes on the ground. Seemed like the same play over and over, pop the ball back to McCaffery, long pause, queue jets!

McCaffrey was 110-percent ready for this game. He caught four passes for 27 yards. On top of that, he ran the ball 23 times for 169 yards and two touchdowns, one of which was 45 yards long and another was called back.

Last season the score was much worse; Arizona lost 52-17, a 35 point difference. Last night Arizona lost 34-10, 24 points. Saturday’s loss stung much more because it pushed the Cats to a 0-5 record in the Pac-12 and 2-6 record overall.

Samajie Grant debuted as a running back, and his stats were commendable considering it was his first time ever starting as a running back in his college career. Grant ran 19 times for 64 yards only outdone by quarterback Brandon Dawkins who rushed 17 times for 64 yards.

If you take out the one play where he lost about 15 yards, his numbers would have been better. He gave himself a D- for his play, but you have to give him an A+ for effort, for being a team player and trying to do whatever it takes for his team to win.

Trying to explain the situation, Rodriguez summed it all up, “It’s a little tough right now, but we’ll bounce back, there are a few more guys that got injured but that happens, we’ll regroup and get on the road.”

Jacob Alsadek felt that Samajie could have done better if only the offensive line could have opened up some more holes for him. Rich Rod called him a “tough competitor” and said he will keep him at running back, and keep preparing him for the next game. Rodriguez explained Samajie’s and Parker Zeller’s mindset, “Every play is like their final play and they play so hard.”

Alsadek, emotional from a tough loss, explained that the team did not take this loss lightly, that players were in tears in the locker room, and that winning is all they work for.

Both Rodriguez and Jacob expressed definitively that everyone cares, the coaches, the players, and the front office. If they didn’t care, if they weren’t upset, then you would have a right to be pissed off at them, but that is not the case.

Here is the video of the post game presser with Rodriguez care of Arizona Daily Star:

We all thought things were the worst for Arizona Football last season with no bye week and a ton of injuries to major players like the quarterback and the middle linebacker. We are finding out that is not the case, things can get worse. When things are getting worse, it’s hard to not be disappointed all around. But take it from us, no one is more upset or frustrated than the team and their coaches.

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So at this point either don’t watch or support the team. If you support the team, know that they are trying and they want to win more than you want them to win. When the Wildcats win another game, and we hope it’s this season, it will be sweeter for those of you who support the team no matter what, it’s your choice.  BEARDOWN ARIZONA!