Arizona is back on a short week, and the setup is straightforward: a Friday night home game against TCU, with kickoff set for 8:15 p.m. MST at Casino Del Sol Stadium. ESPN will carry the matchup, and FanDuel Sportsbook has Arizona installed as a 7.5-point favorite with the total at 44.5.
The Wildcats enter at 6-2 after a 34-26 loss to Texas Tech, a result that may have dented their Big 12 Championship hopes. Arizona sits in a four-way tie for third in the league standings at 3-2, but the two teams directly ahead of it both own head-to-head wins over the Wildcats.
That Texas Tech setback also snapped a run of three straight covers for Brent Brennan’s team. Arizona is now 3-5 against the spread overall and 2-2 ATS at home after failing to cash as a 4.5-point favorite last week.
TCU comes in at 4-4 and 3-5 ATS, fresh off a 22-16 home win over Kansas in which the Horned Frogs covered as 5.5-point favorites. Sonny Dykes’ team stumbled out of the gate in conference play with losses to UCF and BYU, then answered with a win at Baylor before falling at home to West Virginia.
On paper, the contrast in scoring jumps out. TCU has the Big 12’s second-lowest scoring offense at 23.3 points per game, while Arizona is putting up 34.9. The Horned Frogs did manage their highest conference output against Kansas, scoring 22 points.
TCU’s offense leans heavily on the pass, averaging 276 yards through the air, which ranks fourth in the Big 12 behind Oklahoma State, Arizona and Baylor. Senior quarterback Jaden Craig, a Harvard transfer, is 11th nationally with 2,207 passing yards and has thrown 11 touchdowns against six interceptions.
The other side of the ball is where TCU has built its edge. The Horned Frogs lead the Big 12 in scoring defense at 14.1 points allowed per game. Arizona’s defense is giving up 18.9 points per contest.
In Other News...
Tommy Lloyd Already Has One Arizona Lineup Decision Hanging Over UCLA
Arizonas trip to Las Vegas for the season opener against UCLA already comes with a little lineup intrigue for Tommy Lloyd, even before the ball goes up. The Wildcats are trying to build on a run that ended with a Final Four appearance and a strong start last season, and Lloyd said the preseason has been about both development and sorting out how the rotation should look when the games count.
One wrinkle is the absence of RJ Godfrey, which changes the way the projected starting five would have lined up and leaves Lloyd with more moving parts than he might have preferred this early. He has stuck with the same five starters through the preseason exhibitions, but he still has not closed the door on giving Cameron Holmes, Ugnius Jarusevicius or Maksim Brnovic a path into the mix. [Read more 🡒]
Arizona Just Saw Its Win Streak End For A Familiar Reason
Arizonas unbeaten run ended Friday night in a game that looked a lot like some of its other tight losses this season: plenty of production through the air, not enough balance to finish the job. Noah Fifita kept the Wildcats moving against Texas Tech at Galaxy Stadium, and Isaiah Mizell gave the offense a jolt with a long touchdown catch, but Arizona never found enough answers on the ground and let key chances slip away late in a 34-26 defeat.
The bigger concern may have come in the third quarter, when freshman receiver R.J. Mosley went down with a lower leg injury and had to be carted off. For a team already trying to steady itself after a frustrating loss, the injury added another layer of uncertainty to a night that left Arizona with more questions than it had at kickoff. [Read more 🡒]
Arizonas Texas Tech Loss Exposed A Bigger Concern Than The Score
The final score from Arizonas loss to Texas Tech was frustrating enough, but the deeper concern showed up in the grading. Pro Football Focus gave the Wildcats a 66.3 overall, with the offense at 63.0 and the defense at 67.5, a split that suggests the game was competitive in stretches without ever really feeling clean. The individual grades and snap counts told the same story, with a few players standing out even in defeat.
Isaiah Mizell was the bright spot on offense, while Cam Chapa led the way on defense, but the bigger issue was how difficult it was for Arizona to generate consistent push. The numbers point to a unit that had enough moments to stay in the game, yet not enough cohesion to control it, and that is the kind of problem that tends to linger long after one loss is forgotten. [Read more 🡒]