Arizona Football: Safety Scottie Young Jr. MVP as Wildcats beat Cal 24-17

Arizona Football safety No. 19, Scottie Young, was on fire catching two interceptions and one pick-six touchdown adding seven tackles to beat the Bears 24-17.

Bear Down Arizona! Another win in Pac-12 play again against Cal! WOOHOO!

The Arizona Football Team came out swinging getting on the board first with a touchdown pass from Khalil Tate to Tony Ellison. This was the first game for Cal where they did not score first.

The defense showed up right out of the gate tonight. Colin Schooler logged four tackles in the first series including a huge sack along with Scottie Young. The two would combine again on a Cal fourth down. Schooler forced the fumble and Young recovered it, but it wouldn’t count because the running back was ruled down before the ball popped out.

On the following series for the Cats, Josh Pollack took over at kicker and made a 46-yard field goal to push the Cats to a 10-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Former Cal Bear Dylan Klumph kicked a 57-yard punt. Lorenzo Burns made a key tackle on special teams to help keep Cal from gaining yards.

When Arizona got the ball back, Sumlin sent in true freshman QB Jamarye Joiner. The media watched the sideline for Tate to see if he was re-injured, and the verdict was mixed. Joiner ended up with a three-and-out. He is allowed to play in four games and keep his redshirt and Sumlin confirmed post game that it was the plan all along to get him in for a series.

Arizona’s defense showed up again and forced a punt, Arizona would take over on their own six-yard line.

Penalties would again make a difference in this game. Cody Creason made two mistakes for penalties in the first half along with Dereck Boles who head-butted a Cal Bear putting the Bears at the Arizona 23.

McIlwain broke away again and scored Cal’s second touchdown, this time for 23 yards, his first was for 25-yards. UGH.

Cal 14, Arizona 10.

Thirty-four seconds were left in the half, Arizona decided to try to score. Although the announcers said Tate was hurt, he ran fine. But none-the-less, the Cats last three series were punts. Layth Friekh out, for what reason we didn’t know, Tate was forced to pass the ball out of bounds three times in the last series.

Arizona’s O-Line just could not protect their quarterback. The blind side was wide open for Cal to take advantage and get to Tate. At least he didn’t throw an interception.

Remember when Foles played for the Rams? Yeah, he was different QB when played with the Eagles at the end of their season. Arizona needed an effective O-Line to protect the QB for any QB to be effective. The big question was if Arizona would put in a new QB for the experience.

A scary moment in the third quarter when Isaiah Hayes was targeted with a huge helmet to helmet hit sending Hayes on the ground and needed help and time to get back to his bench. Even their Fox Sports expert from Los Angeles chimed in and said the non-call was a mistake.

https://twitter.com/ZonaZealots/status/1048784333463404549

Arizona’s defense forced Cal to punt twice in their first two series to begin the third quarter, they even figured out how to stop the Cal QB from that run play that got him two touchdowns. That was key. But then Tate threw an interception and their momentum was stopped.

Although almost everyone seemed to be calling for Tate to be benched, Sumlin kept him in the game. They forgot that Tate leads the Cats to comebacks in the second half of the last few games even limping.

Then it happened, the play that could turn around the game. Colin Schooler intercepted the ball at the 15-yard line and ran it up the field. The ball was punched and it popped out of his arms and into redshirt freshman Azizi Hearn‘s hands. Azizi ran the ball in for the pick six and Arizona was in the lead, 17-14. What a play!

Cal penalties kept Arizona in the game.

McIlwain, the Cal QB got hit and his helmet came off, so they put in a new QB Chase Garbers but Cal didn’t need to use a timeout because it was the end of the fourth quarter. Cal did have to burn a timeout on third and long in the red zone. They had one timeout left in the game.

Arizona’s defense would stop Cal with one yard to go, Arizona would call their first timeout. Dereck Bowles redeemed himself along with Tony Fields II to get the ball back on downs at the two yard line.

Cal took the chance because Arizona’s offense had been ineffective since the half. Mazzone continued to play JJ Taylor and run him up the middle over and over again. No passes to the TE’s no slant passes, nothing. Freikh got called for a false start and then Kahlil Tate took off and ran for a first down on the next play.

As Arizona was making great progress up the field, Cal’s Ashtyn Davis recovered a JJ Taylor fumble. But a play or two later, Scottie Young intercepted a pass and ran 38 yards to the Cal 28 yard line. What a great play for a student-athlete who worked his way back on the team. What a feel-good play.

As luck would have it though, Josh Pollack missed a 40-yard field goal, the ball hit the left upright. Arizona was still 17-14 Cats with about seven minutes left in the game.

These Cal games can give you a heart attack, not joking.

On the ensuing series, Josh JB Brown sacked the quarterback forcing a fumble and the ball was recovered by  XX Brand.

On the very next Cal series, Scottie Young once again intercepted a pass for a pick-six touchdown! Can you say MVP??? Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week?

Arizona 24, Cal 14.

Cal then marched down the field to score a field goal, then with 14 seconds left, the Bears tried two onside kicks, the first forced the defense to jump early. Both times, Shawn Poindexter caught the ball. On the second attempt, Poindexter was leveled by Hawkins, and a flag was thrown as well it should have been and this time the referees called targeting against Cal. That’s two targeted tackles by Bears. The second stuck and the Cats won 24-17.

Post game press conference, listen closely to Colin Schooler, he’s telling you that the team works very hard and feel they should have more wins to show for their work:

Sumlin is happy with the win, he feels he has the best players on the field now, he didn’t the first two games. You look into this and a few names pop out, Scottie Young, PJ Johnson, and Layth Freikh. But it takes a team to win a game and others are stepping up like Josh Brown. Schooler, Tony Fields II, and Jarrius Wallace each made nine tackles. Personally, I never gave up on this team when the rest of our Contributors did, maybe we need to be more positive as a fan base? You think? Arizona is tied for second place with USC in the Pac-12 South.