Arizona Football runs all over NAU Lumberjacks in Opener

With the 2017 Arizona Football season officially underway, the Wildcats opened the season with a big win over Northern Arizona.

Picking up where they apparently left off, the Arizona Football team used a strong and collective running effort in defeating the visiting Lumberjacks of Northern Arizona on Saturday evening.

As expected, junior quarterback Brandon Dawkins was the first to take a snap under center, but unfortunately, Arizona’s offense looked a bit sluggish early on, perhaps getting over the first game jitters.

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It was the Wildcats special teams. However, that would strike first in this inner-state match-up, when junior receiver Shun Brown, would score a touchdown just a few minutes into the game!

The speedy, Louisiana native would field a punt at the Arizona 34-yard line, making one defender miss, before returning it 66-yards, and giving the Wildcats a 7-0 lead!

However, NAU would respond with a big play of their own, when junior running back, Cory Young would sprint 58-yards untouched up the middle, to tie the game at 7-7.

Big plays would certainly highlight the first half, which helped to get Arizona’s offense going, as they took a commanding 34-14 lead, heading into halftime.

In the second half, Arizona would pretty much pick up where they left off in the first when Dawkins would scamper for 66-yards, marking his second touchdown of the evening, and extending Arizona’s lead to 41-14.

Arizona would ultimately pace themselves to a dominating, 62-24 win over the Lumberjacks!

Game Overview:

• The Wildcats accumulated 595-yards of offense, with 506 of them coming on the ground. Arizona would also have six different players score seven of their rushing touchdowns, including a touchdown from coaches son, Rhett Rodriguez, and sophomore Branden Leon, who recently earned a scholarship with the team.
• The defense would struggle, giving up 24 points and 562-yards of offense. Arizona would miss tackles and assignments which ultimately frustrated head coach, Rich Rodriguez. Rodriguez felt his team “struggled all game defensively.”
• Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles had two interceptions.
• Arizona had nine penalties for 81 yards. Some of those coming on the defensive end with pass interference penalties.
• The passing game was rather non-existent, as the Wildcats had just 89 yards total, completing seven passes on 14 attempts with a touchdown to Tony Ellison.

With the victory, Arizona begins the season 1-0 for the sixth, straight year under Rodriguez, and will return to action next weekend, when the Houston Cougars come to Tucson.

However, the Wildcats will have to play better if they hope to win, as Houston has quite a few talented players. Despite previous head coach Tom Herman leaving for Texas, the Cougars are primed to have another strong campaign in 2017.

Ed Oliver will lead a solid defensive group that ranked in the Top-20 last season, allowing just 319 yards per game (100.2 rushing- ranked fourth in the NCAA) and gave up just 20.5 points per game, ranking them 30th in the NCAA.

Listen as Rodriguez gives us some of his thoughts following the Wildcats win:

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At Zona Zealots, we are just happy that Arizona won, and can move on to the next game. They will have a tough challenge this week, and hopefully, we can improve in time versus Houston! Bear Down, Arizona!