HONOLULU, HI – Well, it was not a good night for Arizona Football as the Wildcats once again fall flat on their face to open the season!
Fans who were hoping for a hot start to the 2019 Arizona Football season are unfortunately not going to get it, as it was a typical start for an Arizona season…
Coming in as 11-point favorites, many were hoping for big things this season, but as Khalil Tate came up one-yard short from potentially tying the game, nothing exemplifies the sad history of Arizona Football, better than the ending of this game.
Arizona Wildcats
No matter the year, it’s almost always the same result for the Wildcats, as hopes are high, only to eventually be let down. And with the teams’ loss to Hawaii on Saturday evening, many Wildcat fans are certainly feeling let down.
So with one game in the books already, what have we learned from this group…
1. The Defense looks no better this season
Coming in, I for one was drinking the Kool-Aid heavily, thinking this was perhaps finally the year the Arizona Defense can finally get things turned around. It’s now year four under defensive coordinator Marcel Yates, the interior defensive line has size and depth, and this group returned a large majority of their starters from 2018.
Fast forward, and it appears this group is no better, if not worse than last season. Hawaii gained 595 yards of total offense, and put 45 points on Arizona. Should those struggles continue, it’s going to be a long season in Tucson, and Yates’ future could be in jeopardy.
2. We were told Arizona could be using a four-man front… that’s not true!
Finally a four-man front for Arizona… or so we were told. That couldn’t be any further from the truth last night.
To the fans’ agony, once again Arizona used a three-man rush and got absolutely torched… surprised?! Not really. Arizona struggles immensely when they rush three, yet we still do it, and opposing teams absolutely pick us apart.
The Wildcats struggled in pressuring the Hawaii quarterbacks, and as a result, we gave up nearly 600 yards of offense.
3. The Offensive Line is going to need a little time to gel
Coming in, we knew there was going to be a bit of a learning curve along the offensive line. Remember, that Arizona lost a couple key starters along the line from last season, and had to replace their offensive line coach.
By seasons end this could be a solid group, but for now, there’s definitely going to be some growing pains, and on Saturday it showed. The best rushing team in the Pac-12 from last season had just 178 yards rushing against Hawaii, with Tate having 108 of those.
This group needs time to gel and I think it’ll happen, but Saturday was a tough start.
4. This team looked unprepared, and that’s a direct result from the coaching staff
We heard all off-season that Arizona was inconsistent last year. And by all means, yes that’s true, but in year two things should look better in theory. Last night was not the case.
Arizona looked unprepared, poorly coached and ultimately were not put in a position to succeed. It took nearly three full quarters for the defense to make any sort of adjustments, and that’s just something that should not happen at a school in a Power Five conference.
You can blame Tate for his shortcomings, but putting this loss on him is short-sighted and really ill-informed. We had eight months to prepare for Hawaii, and Arizona gave up 595 yards and 45 points.
For now, it’ll be a long two weeks until Arizona takes the field again when they play NAU. We have a lot of things to fix if we expect this team to be competitive this season. As always, Bear Down, Arizona!