By the Numbers: Breaking down the Arizona Football loss to Oregon

As Arizona Football fell to 3-3 (1-2) after their 49-22 loss to No. 12 Oregon, we break down the numbers in the Wildcats’ humbling loss to the Ducks. 

Now into week seven of the 2022 Arizona Football season, the Wildcats suffered a humbling defeat at the hands of No. 12 Oregon as they fell 49-22 on Family Weekend.

A week after pummeling the Buffaloes, Arizona was on the opposite end of the beat down this weekend as they were outpaced by the Ducks convincingly.

Outgained 580 yards to 356, it wasn’t a day to remember for sophomore quarterback Jayden de Laura and the Wildcats receiving corp this week as they only combined for 241 yards passing this compared to the 495 yards passing and six touchdowns they had last week.

And with the humbling loss, the Wildcats have now fallen to 3-3 (1-2) on the season!

Trailing 28-13 at the half, Arizona Football couldn’t rally, as the Ducks cruised to the dominant victory in this one, and we look at the numbers in Arizona’s loss!

306 – Coming in, we knew the Wildcats were to likely struggle with Oregon’s dynamic and potent offensive rushing attack, and as scripted, the Ducks ran all over the Cats.

Using six different rushers, Oregon ran for 306 yards on 41 attempts and seven touchdowns for an average of 7.5 yards per rush.

The Ducks’ rushing attack was truly the difference-maker in this one as the Cats were overmatched, falling to No. 12 Oregon 49-22.

375 – As rough as Arizona’s defense was on Saturday evening against the Ducks, what made it worse was that the Wildcats were unable to slow down the Ducks on first down.

Of the 580 yards surrendered on defense, 375 of them came on first down for an average of 9.9 yards per play. As a result, the Ducks picked up 29 first downs and only saw eight third-down attempts on Saturday evening.

8.3 – On Saturday, the Wildcats’ defense struggled mightily as they surrendered 580 yards of offense. Even worse than the 49 points and seven rushing touchdowns they gave up was the average play yardage.

Aside from the fourth quarter when Oregon pulled a majority of its offensive starters, the Wildcats were on pace to break a school-worst record of 9.41 yards per play (UCLA – 1972). Instead, Arizona still surrendered 8.3 yards per play

3 – When you take care of the football, good things happen, and unlike last week where Arizona didn’t turn the ball over once, we saw a bit of Jekyll and Hyde this week as the Cats turned the ball over three times which led to 14 points for the Ducks.

In the Wildcats’ three wins this season, they have turned the ball over just twice in those wins. However, in their three losses, Arizona has turned the ball over nine… I repeat NINE times. Cats simply have to take better care of the football if they hope to win any more games.

50,800 – A year removed from their 1-11 (1-8) finish, the Wildcats were able to draw 50,800 fans, their largest crowd since the 2018 Territorial Cup and first sellout since 2015 (when Arizona Stadium had a larger capacity).

The buy-in in year two of the Jedd Fisch era is nice; however, you just wish the outcome would have been a bit better for fans to have hope for. This loss likely crushes some of that hope that fans had, and makes it more challenging for Arizona to generate fan interest for the rest of the season.

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