No. 20 Arizona will be looking for a better defensive effort when it takes on FCS opponent Northern Arizona on Saturday night in Tucson, Ariz.
The Wildcats (1-0) beat visiting New Mexico 61-39 in the Arizona debut of head coach Brent Brennan, as wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan went off for a school-record 304 receiving yards and four touchdowns, earning Associated Press national player of the week honors.
The defense, though, struggled with one-on-one tackling and setting the edge against the run, especially against athletic quarterback Devon Dampier.
“I give New Mexico and (Dampier) a lot of credit,” said Brennan, whose team allowed 30 first downs.
“I also think there’s some things that we can be a little more clean on, in terms of our contain and some of those rush lines. That’s something the defensive staff is working hard cleaning up. We’ll be ready to go this weekend.”
NAU (1-0) got an easy win last Saturday for new coach Brian Wright, clobbering Lincoln (Calif.) 66-6. The Lumberjacks rushed for 235 yards while quarterback Ty Pennington, who won a tight camp battle with Angel Flores, completed 7 of 9 passes for 114 yards and one touchdown. Pennington also ran twice for 34 yards and a score.
He followed Wright from Pittsburg State, where the coach went 33-8 in four seasons.
“We’ve put a lot of work in, so it’s fun to be out there with this group and competing,” Wright said after NAU’s opening victory. “I think we did good things at times; we were a little bit sloppy as to be expected in Game 1. We have a lot to work on there, but we’re 1-0.”
Arizona’s McMillan and quarterback Noah Fifita — longtime pals and high school teammates — were in midseason form against New Mexico. Fifita completed 19 of 31 passes for 422 yards, while running backs Jacory Croskey-Merritt and Quali Conley combined for 196 yards and four touchdowns on the ground.
The Wildcats have loads of options on offense, although Brennan knows that they still have something to prove when it comes to developing other weapons in the passing game. No other receiver caught more than one pass in the opener, although there was no need against New Mexico, which mostly tried to defend McMillan with single coverage.
“I think for us to be as effective as we want to be, we have to have more distribution with the football,” Brennan said.
“Noah knows that, our offensive staff knows that. It’s just a matter of him going through his progressions and finding the right place to go with the ball. Those opportunities kind of presented themselves with T-Mac on Saturday night, so he took advantage of them.”
Arizona and NAU met in last season’s opener, with the Wildcats winning 38-3 in Tucson. Arizona leads 16-2 in the series, which dates to 1931, although the bulk of the games have taken place since 2002, with the teams generally meeting every other year.
The Lumberjacks pulled off a major upset in 2021, winning 21-19, which was part of a 20-game losing streak for the Wildcats.
–Field Level Media
