Arizona Football offense explodes in win over Colorado

TUCSON, AZ- It’s another happy weekend for Arizona Football (5-5, 4-3), as the Wildcats come away victorious against the Colorado Buffaloes!

Arizona Football is turning things around! After a humbling 0-2 start to the season, the Wildcats have now won two straight!

A week after knocking off then No. 19 ranked Oregon in dominating fashion, everything seemed to set-up for a potential let down game.

Arizona Wildcats

It was a short week, Colorado had just come off an embarrassing loss and the Wildcat injuries piled up even more over the last week. Regardless, it was going to take another strong performance to knock off Colorado!

From the start things looked shaky to say the least. A quick three-and-out by Arizona gave the Buffaloes the ball, but a few costly, Wildcat mistakes quickly in that first quarter allowed Colorado to jump out to an early, 10-0 lead.

Luckily, that lead dissipated quickly, as junior quarterback Khalil Tate would finally get things rolling in the second quarter.

He would help to get Arizona on the board with a 49-yard field goal from Lucas Havrisik, then on their very next drive, it would be capped by a 40-yard strike from Tate to Stanley Berryhill III to tie this game at 10-10! And just like that, the momentum had shifted.

Arizona would force Colorado to a quick three-and-out, getting the ball right back, and capitalizing quickly. Once again, Tate and the Wildcats would march down the field, setting up for an eight-play, 82 yard drive that ended in a Shawn Poindexter touchdown from one yard out to make it 17-10 Arizona!

That’s when the fireworks would begin to start in this one, leading to another, notorious Arizona-Colorado shootout.

The Buffaloes would get a touchdown that would tie it briefly after a six-play drive, but Arizona would then respond, with another touchdown of their own. This one coming from Tate to Shun Brown, however, a missed extra point kept it at 23-17.

Now with just 59 seconds left in the half and hoping to hold on to the lead, the Buffaloes would unfortunately score in 26 seconds to retake the lead at 24-23.

Hoping to steal the momentum, Arizona would work its magic in the final seconds of the first half, putting themselves in decent position, that would set-up for a 55-yard field goal attempt from Havrisik. The big-leg sophomore would be successful, giving the Wildcats the 26-24 lead, just as time expired.

Despite the numerous mistakes by the Wildcats in the first half, Arizona was in control of the game at that point, with Tate accounting for three touchdowns in the first half, and Taylor running for 77 yards.

The second half would set up for more Arizona dramatics, as the scoring would not cease for either team.

Colorado would open the second half with a big, 11-play 75-yard drive to regain the lead, albeit briefly at 31-26.

Tate and Arizona would drive down the field again and quickly, going five plays for 66 yards and another touchdown, this one to Poindexter again! They would go for two-points after, but the conversion failed.

Arizona would get the ball back quickly, driving down for another field goal to make it 35-31, on a 41-yard attempt from Josh Pollack. However, Colorado would answer on the ensuing drive on a field goal of their own to cut the lead to 35-34.

The Wildcats would once again respond, going 85 yards in four plays to put this one away for good on a 57-yard Cedric Peterson touchdown from Tate to eventually make it 42-34.

Luckily, there wouldn’t much scoring after this, despite Colorado’s few opportunities to do so. Arizona’s defense would ultimately come up with the plays it needed down the stretch to deliver the win!

The Wildcats would finish with the 42-34 victory, picking up their fifth win of the season, and putting them just one-win away from becoming bowl eligible!

Tate finished the game with 350 yards passing, completing 17 of 22 attempts for five touchdowns to just one interception. Taylor also had a terrific game, running a career-high 40 times for 206 yards.

Arizona will return to action in two weeks when they take on Washington State in Pullman. The Wildcats will be able to use next weeks bye week to get healthy and get ready to play a talented Cougars team.

Here’s to hoping we can do this a couple more times this year…

At Zona Zealots, we’re proud of the way Arizona battled in this one, coming back from 10-points down to come away with another solid win! Bear Down, Arizona!