Takeaways in the Arizona Football loss to No. 12 Oregon

Crashing back down to reality, Arizona Football (3-3, 1-2) was unable to score the upset in their 49-22 beatdown at the hands of No. 12 Oregon (5-1, 3-0).  

We are now into week six of the Arizona Football season, and despite the Wildcats being thumped by Cal the week before to open Pac-12 play, the Wildcats responded in a big way with a dominant win over Colorado.

Returning to action to resume Pac-12 Conference play, Arizona was hopeful entering this one, especially as the Buffaloes had been reeling, losing their first games by a combined score of 173-47.

Luckily for us, it was the Wildcats’ day as Arizona outgained the Buffaloes 673 yards to 340 which included 495 yards passing. Arizona’s six passing touchdowns would help pace the Wildcats in this one as they went on to win by a 43-20 final.

So with Arizona Football now falling to 3-3 (1-2) on the season, we look at the major takeaways following the Wildcats’ loss to Oregon.

Arizona’s Defense needs more Personnel + Use more of its Bench

This week, Arizona’s defense took a major step backward. Granted, Oregon has one of the best offenses in the conference; however, for another week, this defense has made little to no improvement (perhaps even regressing from week one), and in short, there are no answers for this group, at least not this year.

At this point, you hope that Arizona can show some sort of life and improvement for the rest of the season. I would like to see more repetitions from some guys on the bench.

Sure, you could argue that they might not be good enough to make an impact; however, when the defense ranks 110th out of 131 teams, can it get significantly worse? Besides, when in a rebuild, you would hope younger guys could get reps now to make a bigger impact down the road.

Jayden de Laura still Struggles against good Competition

As we have seen at times this year, when Jayden gets rolling, he is hard to stop. Unfortunately, the majority of that success has come against worse competition.

While he didn’t necessarily have a terrible game last night, he also didn’t have a great game either. His 241 yards passing on 24 of 42 attempts with a touchdown was also accompanied by an interception, a fumble, and a poorly executed hand-off that led to a fumble.

Now, had de Laura played a cleaner game, this one might have been closer. That’s not to say Arizona would have won, but it could have been more interesting.

Hopefully, Jayden can play a bit better against tougher competition!

Simplify the Offense

Sometimes Jedd Fisch and the Wildcats can get a little cute on offense, which ultimately leads to some stalled and head-scratching drives.

Moving forward, Fisch and Co. need to stick with what works and not deviate from it. Arizona has the tools to be successful on offense, they just need repetition and consistency.

Slow and Steady Progress

This time last year, Arizona was 0-5 and was coming off of a tough loss to UCLA in Eugene. As we are all aware, the team eventually went on to a 1-11 finish, with their sole win coming against a Covid-depleted Cal team.

And while the Wildcats’ three wins are great, they still have a long way to go to being competitive week and week out, and there is a real possibility that Arizona could finish the year winless from here on out.

We (including us at Zona Zealots) need to remind ourselves that this is going to be a lengthy rebuild and we all need to remain patient.

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