After another shaky start on both sides of the ball, Arizona settled in during the second half, and the Wildcats put another putrid start behind them in a 34-24 win over the Washington State Cougars in Pullman on Saturday.
It was the second week in a row Arizona rallied from a double-digit deficit to win, and the Wildcats improved to 3-1 on the season.
Arizona’s defense forced Washington State to punt four times in a row (sandwiched by a fumble recovery in the second half) as the Wildcats kept the Cougars to seven points in the second half.
Washington State had just 154 total yards in the second half and aside from one mistake by Arizona — a fourth-and-10, 46-yard touchdown from Washington State on a cover-zero blitz with 7:15 left in the fourth quarter — it was a nearly perfect half for Arizona’s defense.
“Winning is hard,” Arizona coach Brent Brennan told reporters after Saturday’s game. “Credit to Washington State. They played tough football. They made plays. I loved our response. We go down 14-0 in the first quarter and players just kept responding, kept finding ways to make plays, get a stop. We talked about multiple battles in this game that we’re going to have to fight. Coming up here, we know this is a tough trip, we know it’s a tough place to play. Lots of us have played in games here, coached in games here and we knew the crowd would be impactful.”
Tre Spivey strong start keeps Arizona in the game
Arizona’s leading receiver Gio Richardson remained out with a lower extremity injury, which opened up an opportunity for Tre Spivey to have a career day.
Spivey had an early drop but bounced back for four catches and 103 yards in the first quarter alone. It was his first career 100-yard receiving game.
Spivey had 12 receptions for 149 yards and two touchdowns through Arizona’s first three games but has seen an increased role with Richardson sidelined. He finished with seven receptions for 129 yards and two touchdowns on Saturday.
Facing a 14-0 hole, he had a 44-yard grab on a wheel route on a third-and-eight and two plays later caught a touchdown, which got Arizona on the board.
Spivey scored again in the second quarter to level the game. It was the third multi-touchdown game of Spivey’s career and his second with two receiving touchdowns.
Aside from the senior wide receiver’s output, the Wildcats were not able to get much going offensively in the early stages.
Arizona had just 57 rushing yards through the first three quarters but went to running the ball in the fourth quarter, which proved to be highly successful.
Arizona had 93 rushing yards in the fourth quarter, led by Ismail Mahdi’s 63 yards on the ground, 43 of which came in the fourth quarter.
“(Running the football) is one of those things that we’ve been working on tirelessly,” Brennan said. “It was great. We really started to move them in the second half. I thought that was impactful because they were playing good defense. Coming into this game, we had a lot of respect for them offensively and defensively. They’re well-coached, they play extremely hard and they had played two really tough Power 4 teams (Washington and Kansas State) on the road. So we have a ton of respect for them.
“It was great to see that momentum swing in the second half for us, when the run game became really impactful.”
Fifita slow start and more offensive line struggles
The Wildcats fell behind into another early hole, this time facing a 14-0 deficit after Noah Fifita threw a pick-six, which was returned by Jackquintin Bal (a former Arizona State Sun Devil from Peoria). It was Fifita’s first pick-six since Oct. 12, 2024 at BYU.
Fifita looked uncharacteristically bad to begin Saturday’s game. He started 3 of 9 after going 31 of 34 against Northern Illinois last week. He finished 22 of 36 with 297 yards and four touchdowns and one interception.
In the early stages, Arizona’s offensive line struggled again, and costly penalties punished the Wildcats.
The left side of the line, Rhino Tapa’atoutai and Matthew Lado, has been a bugaboo all season and the pair again struggled Saturday. Entering Saturday, Arizona allowed nine sacks. The next highest total in the conference was five.
Washington State was getting pressure to Fifita early on from its front four. The Cougars sacked Fifita on the first play, despite having one sack all season. It became two sacks for Washington State in the first quarter and three in the first half.
“I was just fired up for how we responded,” Brennan said. “You go down 14-0 and nobody flinched. Everybody just went to work, doing their job, playing redline and the results followed after that.”
Caleb ‘the Jet’ Smith explodes in third quarter to give Arizona first lead
Caleb “the Jet” Smith gave Arizona its first lead when the Wildcats ran three plays in a row for the freshman. A 3-yard pass, followed by a 41-yard pass and a 38-yard touchdown.
WSU left Smith in man coverage and miscommunication by the Cougar defensive backs left Smith open for the score.
Arizona could not take advantage of short fields on its first two drives of the second half, with each resulting in a missed and blocked field goal, respectively. The first drive, which started at the Washington State 33, culminated in a missed field goal, a 42-yard try, which could be blamed on a poor snap. The second drive started on the Washington State 32 and ended with a 43-yard field goal attempt from Michael Salgado-Medina, which was too low and blocked.
Salgado-Medina was able to redeem himself with a 51-yard field goal to give Arizona a two-possession lead in the final two minutes.
“We’ve got a lot of faith in Michael,” Brennan said. “Being a placekicker is a tough job, because you just get one shot. There’s no second or third down. … If I didn’t have confidence in him, I wouldn’t put him out there. He went out there and ripped it. And it was beautiful.
“When I think about how that thing finished, to me, that’s something that we’ve been talking about and working on since (the loss to) BYU. Where we didn’t finish in the fourth quarter, but tonight we did, when we had to have a drive and sustain it and hit a field goal to make it a two-possession game, Mike did that and our team did that.”
Up next for Arizona Wildcats
Arizona returns home to face Cincinnati at 8 p.m. next Saturday. The Bearcats (4-0) defeated Kansas State 31-26 on Saturday to remain undefeated.
Comments
1 Comments
You take all the road "W's" you can get . . . Style pints down't mean squat, just win. That being said, the Cats have to stop spotting the opposing team 10-14 points before getting in gear, and they need to run the ball more, as they've got a bunch of guys that carry the rock. Saturday night against the Bearcats should be a good one.