Arizona heads to Pullman this week for a trip that carries a little old-Pac-12 flavor, and Brent Brennan knows exactly why it feels familiar.
“It’s the conference that I played in, I coached in it, so I had a lot of fond memories of that,” said Brennan. “I think the travel was easier.
There weren’t any cross-country trips. If you think about travel from here, I guess this trip that we’re making this weekend would have been the most challenging travel in the old Pac-12.”
The Wildcats still have a longer road swing ahead later with a visit to Morgantown to face West Virginia, but the stop at Washington State is its own kind of test. Arizona will find out plenty about itself on the Pacific coast.
One of the more encouraging signs from last week came on defense, where Tyrese Boss shook off an early stumble and settled into the game. Starting for the first time this season, Boss gave up a long touchdown that put Arizona behind 10-0, but he answered with a clean finish and ended with four tackles while helping against the run. That was enough to put him in position to start again Saturday at Washington State.
Danny Gonzales said the response mattered just as much as the mistake.
“I thought Coach Viney did a great job because I was trying to destroy him,” said Gonzales. “I mean, there’s moments where I think you have to take calculated risks on how you’re gonna treat kids. When you have a 5-foot-10 Mexican getting all over you because you gave up a fricking big play, and you respond the way he did, makes me really proud, really really proud.”
Gonzales said the point was never to bury Boss. It was to see how he would handle the heat and whether the early error would linger.
“I don’t care if you give up another one, it’s how you respond,” said Gonzales. “You cannot go out there and be afraid, and I’m not saying he was.
I’m saying you can’t go out there and be worried about giving up another big play. If you do, you’re going to be hesitant.
If you’re hesitant and you play slow, it’s going to happen again.”
On offense, Noah Fifita’s protection of the football remains a work in progress. He was sacked four times against Northern Illinois, and he said at least three of those were on him because he held the ball too long. He also tied those hits directly to Arizona’s sluggish run game.
“I took four sacks, and at least three of them were my fault, holding the ball too long,” he said. “So that for sure rules the rushing yards in that aspect.”
Seth Doege said the concern isn’t just the sacks themselves, but the way they put the offense behind the chains. He wants Fifita to keep cleaning that up.
“I want him to continue to clean that up, but he’s been good,” said Doege. “That’s the first time where I felt like he was trying to do too much. It was just those first couple drives where I thought he was trying to do a little bit too much, just throw the ball away and play again.”
Even with the extra punishment, Fifita has been remarkably durable. Since stepping in for an injured Jayden de Laura at Stanford in Week 4 of the 2023 season, he has started every game and played 95.1 of the offensive snaps (2478/2605).
“One thing that we forget is how durable he is for how little he is,” said Doege,
Arizona also got a clearer picture of its depth at receiver and tight end after Giovanni Richardson’s absence. Seven players between those two groups had at least three catches, and Doege said the game seemed to restore some confidence across the room. He pointed to Tre Spivey, Chris Hunter and Isaiah Mizell as examples of that lift.
“I felt like you know I was worried about their confidence a little bit,” said Doege. “After the NIU game, you could just feel the confidence back in Tre Spivey.
You could feel the confidence back into Chris Hunter making some big time plays for us. You could feel some confidence in Isaiah Mizell, and that’s just going to help us moving forward.”
Richardson will return at some point, but the tight end spot is a little murkier after Cole Rusk left the Northern Illinois game with an undisclosed injury. His status is unclear, though the rest of the group has already logged meaningful reps. Shane King scored his first career touchdown against BYU, and Tyler Powell did the same Saturday.
Doege likes what he has behind Rusk.
“TP runs just as well, or just as big, and so I like that group,” said Doege. “I think that group’s capable of a lot of things.
I think Suge is getting better and better and better, and then we also got a young kid named Henry Gabalis. If you watch Henry on special teams, you’re like that dude is redlined to the max on special teams.
He will run through somebody’s soul.”
On the back end, Arizona will be without safety Daylen Austin for the rest of the season because of an undisclosed injury. That leaves the rotation mostly to Gavin Hunter and Lee Molette III.
Cam Chapa, the Northern Colorado transfer, saw more action Saturday and flashed in the run game while showing he can tackle cleanly. He led the Big Sky in solo tackles last season, but he’s not leaning on that.
“That was awesome what I did last year, but just focusing on this year, just knowing that it’s different now and I gotta just find the football and make plays for my teammates because my coaches are dependent on me and my teammates to the left and right of me,” said Chapa.
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