Sitting at 3-4 overall and 1-3 in Pac-12 play, Arizona enters its bye week in better position than its 0-7 start to the 2021 and is looking to improve its win total even more down the stretch. With five games left in the regular season, the Wildcats now head into the toughest part of the schedule with three ranked opponents awaiting the team in the next three games.

Heading straight into a three-game stretch against top-25 teams USC, UCLA and Utah right after the bye week, the Wildcats still a lot to correct in the coming days with the plan being to give the players a normal week of practices, focused on fundamentals over game preparation, before some time to get away from football for a bit.

"We'll give them a couple of days [off]," Jedd Fisch said during his lone media availability of the week, Monday. "We'll be back at it Sunday full steam ahead. Sunday will be preparation, all USC on Sunday," Fisch said. "So we'll have a couple days here and there, they had yesterday off and then we'll get at it. But, our goal is to see how good we can be and I tell them they got the spring time to get off."

During the bye week, the Wildcats will look to address their weaker points but also build on the strengths of the offense and defense.

"Get better, that is the number one goal," Fisch said. "Get better in every phase. We're sitting here last year we were 0-7. This year, Week 7, we're 3-4. Our goal right now is to see, can we get better in all three phases in every aspect of offense, defense and special teams? Can we become a better passing team, rushing team, blocking team?

"Can we become a better tackling team, rush defense, pass defense and a better kicking team? ... We want to get better in all three phases. That's our best chance right now."

Through the first seven games of the season, the Wildcats rank second in the conference in passing offense (2,341 yards, 334.4 YPG) and are the No. 4-ranked team in total offense (3,262 yards, 466.0 YPG).

Despite putting up 39 points against Washington and having their second-highest scoring game of the season, the Wildcats still took the loss after allowing UW's conference-leading offense to score 49 points on Saturday.

"I looked just recently that there's two defenses in the top 50 in the country that are in the Pac-12. No one's ranked higher than 35th in total defense in the Pac-12," Fisch said. "We got some great offenses right now. Pac-12 is about scoring and quarterbacks. We're very fortunate to have the one we have, and we've got to find a way to score a few more points than the next team. But I think in the end, we gotta get better in all three phases this bye week.

"We gotta focus in on getting some more stops on defense, preventing scoring on defense, gotta bring the points down. Offensively, we've got to finish. I think we had eight drives that we had the opportunity to score on this past game, we scored on six of the eight and then we had that one fourth-and-1 that got stopped and then we had the field goal that we missed so got to score on those. We had five touchdowns and one field goal otherwise and a two point play. So we got to get better there. And then in the kicking game, kicker has been excellent inside the 40 but we're two of five between the 40 and the 49. So we have to improve in that area as well."

With a growing trend in college football of offense being the main show, as seen in games throughout the season, the Wildcats will work on specifically on getting more stops to combat tough offenses but Fisch also acknowledges the value that good offense brings to college football.

"I just think college football right now, for the most part, a lot of teams are playing with a lot of good offenses and offenses are doing a good job of scoring points," he said. "Whether that be in the first half or the second half. And it's certainly making it fun if you're calling plays on offense and making it challenging if you're calling plays on defense."

The Wildcats will also use the week off to get some players healthy and allow others more time to recover.

Freshman running back Rayshon 'Speedy' Luke remains out while he recovers from ankle surgery after an injury he suffered against North Dakota State, but the Wildcats expect everyone else to be healthy when they return from the bye. Fisch says it would be a "probably a stretch" to see Luke take the field against USC.

Right guard Josh Donovan is expected back from his knee injury since there was no structural damage done when he went down in the game against the Huskies.

"Yeah, we've been fortunate, knock on wood, that our guys have stayed relatively healthy with a couple of guys that have been dinged up throughout different times," Fisch said. "You know, it's nice to give Jacob Cowing a little bit of a break. Based on just getting his ankle back to being 100%, Jayden [de Laura] got rolled up on at the end, get his ankle back to 100%. Josh see how good he can get over the course of time. Tia [Savea] get him back, Isaiah [Rutherford] he should be back. I would hope Mike Wiley, the timing comes at a good time for him. ... I would expect everybody to be healthy other than Speedy, let's call it, for SC and Speedy I would say is at a question mark."

Arizona's upcoming opponents are currently a combined 17-3 so far this season, so this will be an important week for the Wildcat to have improvements before heading into the three-game stretch that will take the team away from home for two of the matchups.

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