Arizona Football overcomes adversity to beat UCLA at home
TUCSON, AZ – With no Khalil Tate or J.J. Taylor, the Arizona Football team was able to come away victorious against the UCLA Bruins.
No Khalil Tate, no J.J. Taylor, apparently no problem for the Arizona Football team, as the Wildcats leaned on true freshman, Grant Gunnell and another, solid defensive performance to come away with the 20-17 conference win.
In front a paltry, 38,283 fans and on prime television, head coach Kevin Sumlin still came away impressed with the poise his freshman signal called had, as Gunnell finished the day with 352-yards passing with a touchdown and more importantly zero turnovers.
Arizona Wildcats
“How he handled the situation, I thought was very, very mature,” Sumlin said. “How he handled things, how he went about his business. Second thing that’s probably the biggest plus, is zero turnovers.”
However, things didn’t necessarily start that way in this one. Arizona came out with a plan, but early on it was difficult to overcome and combat UCLA’s stout, interior run defense.
“They just loaded the box and dared us to throw,” Sumlin said. “We ran the perimeter and got around early, that was our plan to stretch it out a little bit.”
Eventually the Wildcats would find the end zone a couple times in this one, but it was ultimately UCLA that would strike first, going 85-yards on their first drive to make it 7-0 after a Dorian Thompson-Robinson touchdown to tight end Matt Lynch early in the first quarter.
Still trailing 7-0, Arizona would get a chance to score a few series later, but instead came away with a missed field goal from 34-yards out.
Luckily, the Bruins couldn’t avoid the mistakes, as DTR would throw an interception, that would then lead to an Arizona field goal from Lucas Havrisik to make it 7-3 with eight minutes to go in the first half.
A quick three-and-out by the Bruins would once again give the Cats the ball, where they would then be able to capitalize again, this time going 47-yards on 11 plays, converting on another field goal to make it 7-6 just before halftime.
Needing to make some adjustments, Arizona came out stronger in the second half, just taking what the defense was giving them.
Despite UCLA opening the half with a field goal, Arizona responded, scoring on a 75-yard wheel route from Gunnell to Bam Smith to put the Cats in the lead at 13-10.
On the ensuing drive, UCLA would regain the lead, but luckily for us, it didn’t last long. Arizona would finally respond again, this time on a 10-yard touchdown run from Gary Brightwell to put the Wildcats up for good at 20-17.
UCLA would get the ball back with about three minutes to play in this one, and after driving they would give themselves the chance to tie this one.
Sumlin would call a timeout to ice UCLA’s kicker, and apparently the strategy worked, as JJ Molson would miss on his second attempt, delivering the Cats the 20-17 win!
In a game where I’m sure many fans were assuming to have an offensive shootout, it was the defenses that came up big here, especially Arizona’s defense! “I loved the way we played tonight,” said linebacker Colin Schooler. “All phases of the game we had guys stepping up, switching positions and doing everything right and executing.”
With the win, the Wildcats improve to 3-1 (1-0) on the year, and will now travel to Boulder next week to take on Colorado, with Tate and Taylor’s status still in doubt. As for Sumlin, he “doesn’t know”, on the status of the two. “We’ll see what happens on Monday,” he said. “We don’t practice tomorrow, we’ll have guys come in tomorrow and get treatment… we’ll assess them as we go.”
Listen to coach Sumlin as he breaks down his teams’ win over UCLA!
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At Zona Zealots, we’re excited to see the Cats come away victorious and hope they can continue that momentum heading into next week! As always, Bear Down, Arizona!