An inch – or two – may as well have been a mile on Saturday in Provo, Utah. Cliché? Sure. The truth? No doubt.
What that inch – or two – on a failed fourth-down attempt put a game that was in deep doubt into what looked like a rout – but wasn’t.
Arizona’s 28-17 loss to No. 15 Brigham Young was closer than the score indicated. What does that mean? Nothing when it comes to hardship and hurt (because that is there) but Saturday – at least for a half and some of the fourth quarter – Arizona looked the part of a team that can compete and win eight, nine games. Of course, improvements will be needed ASAP. There were too many penalties and too many missed opportunities and, well, BYU is better.
Arizona stayed close – until it didn’t. Polyana observation? Maybe but BYU is considered a Big 12 Conference title contender.
The health of Gio Richardson (he was hurt in the second quarter and UA suffered from it) will play a factor in Arizona’s success moving forward. And so will the play-calling of Seth Doege and defense of Danny Gonzales. Both didn’t pass the sniff test in Saturday’s second half.
Arizona coach Brent Brennan didn’t specifically address Richardson’s injury and what it meant, only to say he thought Noah Fifita did a good job “and gave us a chance moving around in the pocket and kept finding a way to use his legs and create some throws.”
Doege’s offense was shutout in the second 30 minutes and Gonzales’ defense didn’t stop enough, especially on the play after the fourth-down failure when Arizona was driving. UA gave up a monster play and, well, it was all but over.
Upon review, BYU was too good, too big and too strong in the pivotal second half.
“We missed some opportunities,” Brennan said on his postgame radio show. “They came out in the second half (in the first kickoff) and got a score and then offensively we missed on opportunities.”
The three were failed drives where UA had to punt, making little headway to a score. He did say UA had some good field position a couple of times but, “we didn’t make enough plays.”
“When you are going against a good team you’ve got to capitalize on those moments and we didn’t do that.”
One may have been UA’s decision to not go for a long field goal in the second half, but instead punted it. UA may not have needed to go for it on fourth down in the fourth quarter had that punt been successfully executed. That’s assuming the kick would have been successful.
The other big one was UA’s fourth-down attempt with a little more than eight minutes left when Rodney Gallagher’s short pass catch fell inches short of the first-down marker. Initially, it was ruled a first down before replays overturned that decision.
That long pass – 61 yards – and following touchdown to make it 27-17 ended UA’s hope of an upset.
Arizona starts the Big 12 0-1 and has now lost six consecutive games to BYU and three straight since joining the Big 12.
