Arizona Football offense ranked very high in the Pac-12 in 2018

We took a look at the conference to see where the Arizona Football team and their offense landed and compared with the rest of the Pac-12.

Surprise! Most media would have you thinking that the offense of the 2018 Arizona Football team was not stellar. That said, the Pac-12 All-Conference awards were given out on Tuesday, December 4th, 2018 and running back JJ Taylor made the First Team All Pac-12. Taylor earned the honor, and thank goodness the Pac-12 acknowledged his efforts.

Let’s take a moment and get a reality check on the Arizona offense and their production shall we? It’s time to review the stats to give you all some perspective on the Cats 2018 season. It helps when discussing the season and the offense if you have the numbers to back you up. Hopefully, this changes some folks tune a bit putting things in perspective.

You may be surprised, and we hope you acknowledge that although the results weren’t what fans wanted or expected, some great football was played this season. We wanted to celebrate some positives from 2018.

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Arizona quarterback Khalil Tate with help from his five key receivers ranked No. 4 in total touchdowns scored last season with 26, and that was even with missing an entire game and playing hurt for most of the season. Add to that placing second in QB Rating at 149.8 behind K.J. Costello out of Stanford with 157.9.

Along with Rhett Rodriguez, the duo totaled 29 passing touchdowns and tied Stanford to come in second behind Washington’s 37. Together the Cats landed No. 1 in average yards per pass completion in the Pac-12 at 14.2.

Shawn Poindexter accepted an invited to the East-West Shrine game which is a college football all-star game which is played every year since 1925. That’s impressive.

NAME REC YDS AVG LONG TD
Shawn Poindexter 42 759 18.1 75 (TD) 11
Shun Brown 64 655 10.2 65 (TD) 6
Tony Ellison 29 525 18.1 55 6
Devaughn Cooper 18 368 20.4 53 0
Cedric Peterson 18 268 14.9 57 (TD) 4
Stanley Berryhill III 14 218 15.6 40 (TD) 2

As far as total yards, the Cats ranked No. 2 overall with 5,492 behind Washington State who earned 5,542 yards. Arizona landed No. 1 in rushing yards (2,429) and No. 3 in passing yards (3,063). The offense also racked up the third-highest total points with 376 averaging 31.6 points per game behind Washington State (460 points, 38.3 ppg) and Oregon (446 points, 37.2 ppg).

Khalil Tate has 2 of the 4 best pass efficiency games in 2018 (min. 15 attempts):

1. Kyler Murray, Oklahoma (348.04 vs. Baylor)
2. Khalil Tate, @ArizonaFBall (294.08 vs. S. Utah)
3. Sam Hartman, Wake Forest (284.97 vs. Rice)
4. Khalil Tate, @ArizonaFBall (276.82 vs. Colorado)
— Blair Willis (@BlairWillisUA) November 9, 2018

For rushing…the Cats scored 14 touchdowns for a total of 43 altogether.

NAME CAR YDS AVG LONG TD
J.J. Taylor 255 1434 5.6 64 6
Gary Brightwell 91 525 5.8 72 3
Khalil Tate 74 224 3.0 33 2
Darrius Smith 23 98 4.3 14 1
Anthony Mariscal 17 93 5.5 33 (TD) 1
Shun Brown 2 40 20.0 27 0
Branden Leon 4 21 5.3 15 1

Arizona’s kickers ranked No. 2 in field goals getting 19 footballs through the uprights. The Cats trailed only Utah who scored 23 and the next highest offense was Arizona State with 16.

Arizona’s kick returners, Shun Brown being key, averaged 63.4 yards per return, and that landed them in the No. 3 spot.

On September 16th, the Wildcats beat Colorado, but what was most impressive was that Tate passed for five touchdowns and a career record 349 yards.

Next. Post Territorial Cup Ponderings and commentary. dark

Feeling a bit better now, even though it’s evident that the Cats could have won more games if the defense ranked higher this season. Not blaming it all on the defense, but you cannot legitimately fault the Arizona Football players on offense for not performing. Numbers don’t lie.

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