Arizona’s final four-game stretch starts Friday night, and the first test comes with a familiar kind of pressure: don’t trip over the moment.
The Wildcats have spent the 2026 season doing what good teams are supposed to do. They’ve won the games they were expected to win, gone 6-2 overall and 3-2 in the Big 12, and avoided the kind of ugly loss that can wreck a résumé. That’s helped push them to No. 24 in the Associated Press Top 25 and No. 22 in the first College Football Playoff rankings, even if the body of work still leaves room for debate.
Now Arizona gets TCU at Casino Del Sol Stadium on a short week, with three of its last four games at home. Brent Brennan knows the season has reached the part where looking backward is pointless.
“The situation is we can’t go back in time,” Arizona coach Brent Brennan said Monday. “We have to look forward and we have to attack what is happening right now.”
That starts with the risk of a letdown. Around the Big 12, that’s been a real problem this season.
BYU followed its win over Notre Dame with a double-overtime loss at UCF, and then UCF got blown out at home by Baylor. Cincinnati also stumbled hard the week after knocking Texas Tech out of the unbeaten ranks.
Arizona isn’t coming off a signature win, but the danger is still there. The Wildcats had spent the week before the Texas Tech game with their own spotlight, the kind of matchup that gets framed as a proving ground for title and playoff hopes.
The same thing happened after BYU, when Arizona fell behind 10-0 in the first quarter against Northern Illinois, the only winless team in FBS. Doing that against TCU would be a much bigger problem.
The run game is another place Arizona needs answers. At BYU, the Wildcats managed just 12 rushing yards, their lowest total since they had five at UCF in 2026.
Seth Doege called 25 run plays if sacks are taken out of the equation, and 15 of those came on first down. The result was a modest 2.6 yards per first-down carry, with the longest gain going for eight.
“From a number standpoint and from space you’re like, it should work and just it just didn’t,” Doege said.
That first-down issue has been a season-long drag. Arizona is averaging 3.86 yards when it runs on first down, which is the worst mark in the league. TCU has been vulnerable there too, allowing 2.94 yards per carry on first down and 3.22 overall, though three of its last four Big 12 opponents have still topped 150 rushing yards.
The Wildcats may also need to rethink who is carrying the load. Kedric Reescano has been productive near the goal line, with two rushing touchdowns at Texas Tech and seven on the season, but his 3.61 yards per game trails Quincy Craig’s 6.83 and Antwan Roberts Jr.’s 6.74 by a wide margin. Craig and Roberts have both been better on first down as well, each averaging more than seven yards on those runs.
Arizona’s defense has its own quarterback-run problem to solve. Texas Tech leaned into that last week by starting Thomas Castellanos, and the move paid off in a hurry.
The transfer went 5-for-5, rushed for 117 yards and a touchdown, and helped the Red Raiders pile up 328 rushing yards. It was the second time in three games Arizona gave up 300 on the ground, and like the West Virginia game, it was built around quarterback runs.
Until the Wildcats stop that, opponents are going to keep it in the plan.
“Jaden Craig’s gonna run the ball,” UA defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales said. “We know what we’re gonna see for the next four weeks.”
Craig has only 109 rushing yards on the season on 67 carries, but he has also been sacked 22 times. Remove those sacks, and his rushing total jumps to 249 yards at 5.3 per carry. Last week against Kansas, he ran 14 times for 92 yards and scored the game-winning touchdown in a 22-16 win.
Arizona’s task gets tougher because it will be short-handed in the secondary. Safety Cam Chapa is out on the availability report, and cornerback Jay’Vion Cole will miss a second straight game, leaving the Wildcats without two starters. Chapa’s father has said on social media that his son has a hamstring injury that likely keeps him out at least through the end of the regular season.
TCU brings a different kind of challenge: a team that has lived in close games and usually kept scores down. The Horned Frogs are 4-4 overall and 2-3 in the Big 12, but they’ve been in just about every game they’ve played.
In six games against power conference opponents, TCU has averaged 15.3 points and allowed 16.5, and it has not given up more than 24 in any of those. The 22 points it scored against Kansas last week was its best output.
The Horned Frogs are 1-4 in one-score games this season. Arizona has only played one such game so far, and that one ended up as a one-score result only because of a late field goal. Last season, the Wildcats went 3-3 in one-score games.
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