Arizona Football

The Mooney Team Arizona Football Report: No. 20 Arizona overcomes a dismal first half on offense to beat Northern Arizona 22-10 

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Chubba Ma’ae celebrates after forcing a safety against NAU on Saturday at Arizona Stadium. (Arizona Athletics)

In Arizona’s season opener last week against New Mexico, Tetairoa McMillan set a program single-game record for receiving yards with 304 on 10 catches, coming 10 yards short from the Big 12 record, and Noah Fifita threw for 422 yards with four touchdowns.

On Saturday, McMillan went scoreless with two receptions for 12 yards, Fiftita had under 200 passing yards and Arizona mustered only 361 total yards and two touchdowns, but, most importantly, the Wildcats picked up a 22-10 win over Northern Arizona at Arizona Stadium, overcoming a first-half deficit and holding the Lumberjacks scoreless in the second half.

“We’ve got to put it together, huh? That’s what I would say,” Arizona head coach Brent Brennan said of the offensive disparity between the first two games. “We kind of had a struggle finding rhythm offensively tonight, which is something we’ll go to work on, but I was really happy with the response, especially coming out of halftime.”

With the win over NAU, Arizona won its ninth consecutive game following a triple overtime loss to USC last season on Oct. 7, extending the longest active win streak in the FBS and tying the school record. Arizona claimed the longest win streak in the country earlier in the day when defending national champion No. 10 Michigan lost to No. 3 Texas.

Brennan says the Arizona coaching staff will have to evaluate the pass protection from Arizona’s offensive line that had Fifita on the run for much of the evening. He also credited NAU’s secondary for limiting McMillan.

“They pushed some coverage to him at times. They did a good job. They doubled him some, they bracketed him some,” he said. “Obviously we want to do everything we can to A: distribute the football so people can’t just lock in on him, but then he’s also our best playmaker, and we’ve got to give him a chance to make plays on the ball.”

New faces starting on the offensive line included Ryan Stewart at right tackle, replacing Rhino Tapa’atoutai, who suffered an injury against New Mexico and Grayson Stovall at center in the place of experienced senior Josh Baker.

“We had a couple guys that we had to get in there because a couple guys were unavailable, so I think we need to evaluate them on the film and see how it looked and see if there’s anything we can do schematically or formationally that gives us a better chance to find some rhythm,” Brennan said. “I also thought they did some good stuff. We made some good plays. We popped some runs when we needed to. We had some good pass protection to get some throws, but I think the consistency wasn’t what we would like it to be.”

Arizona went 0-for-10 on three-point conversions on Saturday, something Brennan knows the Wildcats must fix moving forward.

“Obviously, we’re going to have trouble beating anyone with that, so that’s something we have to go to work on,” he said

A bright spot for Arizona against NAU was its defense, holding the Lumberjacks to 10 points —  all of which came in the first half — after giving up 39 points to New Mexico in the season opener last Saturday.

“I thought they responded really well. Held them to 10 points, and shut them out in the second half. I thought I was really excited about that,” Brennan said.

NAU held a 10-6 lead at halftime. On the first possession of the second half, the Lumberjacks went for it on 4th-and-1 on Arizona’s 34-yard line, and the Wildcats came up with the stop, leading to a 17-yard touchdown pass from Fifita to Jeremiah Patterson to give Arizona a 13-10 lead.

Arizona (2-0) drove the ball down to NAU’s 8-yard line, but NAU forced two quarterback hurries, and Tyler Loop missed a 27-yard field goal with 3:57 to go in the third quarter.

With NAU (1-1) pinned back to its 1-yard line, Arizona picked up a safety after Chubba Ma’ae and a large group of Wildcats tackled Darvon Hubbard in the end zone, putting the Wildcats up 15-10.

A 56-yard rushing touchdown from Kedrick Reescano extended Arizona’s lead to 22-10 on the next possession.

NAU’s defense limited Fifita to 55 passing yards in the first half, forcing two sacks and an interception before the break.

Quali Conley broke away for a 58-yard run on the opening possession, but the Wildcats had to settle for a 33-yard field goal after Fifita was sacked on the NAU 15-yard line as he dropped back for a pass. NAU then stalled out Arizona on its next two drives, forcing punts from its 39-yard line and 50-yard line. 

The Lumberjacks took a 7-3 lead with a 25-yard touchdown pass from wide receiver Isaiah Eastman to Xander Werner on a sweep play early in the second quarter. On Arizona’s following possession. Mikale Greer intercepted a deep pass by Fifita to take over on its 38-yard line.

A 38-yard field goal by Marcus Lye later gave NAU a 10-3 lead with 6:20 to go in the half. A hands-to-the-face penalty against Ma’ae tacked on 15 yards to a 15-yard run by Seth Cromwell, setting the Lumberjacks up on the drive

Arizona cut NAU’s lead to 10-6 with a 48-yard field goal from Loop with under a minute remaining in the first half.

Arizona had 10 penalties for 95 yards Saturday, bringing Arizona’s total to 19 this season.

“There was way too much of them,” Brennan said.  “I think that what we’re going to learn, and hopefully not the hard way, is that we have to play football the right way, or it’s going to cost us an opportunity, it’s going to cost us a game. Those lessons are hard to learn, but it’s good to learn them when you’re winning.“

Brennan was impressed with the way Conley, Reescano and the running back group played in Jacory Croskey-Merritt’s absence, who Brennan said didn’t play as a precaution because of a concern regarding his eligibility that the coaching staff knew about prior to the game.

“I Have a lot of history with that young man. He’s just an awesome human being, an awesome player. Then you combine that with Speedy (Rayshon Luke) and Kedrick, and I think it’s a really good group,” he said. “So, I was excited to see all of them kind of contribute tonight, and I think seeing the confidence that Quali is playing with is really exciting.”

Conley is also confident that he and other running backs on the roster can step into larger roles if needed.

“We can all make plays…If Bill (Croskey-Merritt) goes down, we have Kedrick. If I go down, we have Speedy. Everybody in the room can play,”  he said.

Conley had 112 yards on 17 carries and five receptions for 35 yards.

Jacob Manu led Arizona in tackles with 14. He recovered a fumble forced by Tre Smith on NAU’s final drive of the game.

Arizona plays No. 17 Kansas State (2-0) on Friday at 5 p.m. in Manhattan, Kan.

Since the game was scheduled before Arizona joined the Big 12, it won’t count against either team’s conference records.

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