Following Arizona's 31-7 loss to Kansas State last week, the Wildcats dropped out of the AP Top-25.
Arizona enters its bye week 2-1 with a game at Utah a week from Saturday with kickoff scheduled for 7:15 pm (MST) on ESPN. The Wildcats will have this week to rest and learn from last week's loss before preparing for No. 12 Utah next week.
Here is what head coach Brent Brennan had to say during Monday's press conference.
Q: What was the message to the team following Friday's loss?
Brennan: "I think there's a lot of them. The biggest thing being that there's so many details in that game, small things that are fixable that I think we can address and attack aggressively. We would be feeling a lot better if we had just handled some of those details a little bit better. That was kind of to my point the other night where I said I need to coach this team better because I do and making sure we get those things air tight before we take the field again."
Q: What went into the decision to have Tyler Loop as the punter?
Brennan: "It was operational time. He gets it off faster."
Q: Is it your philosophy to utilize defensive lineman in the shield when punting?
Brennan: "Those are always big bodies when you're not a traditional punt formation team. Those are always big bodies so they're always offensive or defensive lineman because they take up more space and you're hoping to build a wall in front of the punter."
Q: What is the reasoning schematically behind the slower hand-offs?
Brennan: "Dependent on what we're running, you want to give those blockers if it's some sort of gap scheme where we're pulling offensive lineman or some sort of zone scheme, you want to have it like a gap scheme, you don't want the back to be ahead of the pullers. We're using offensive lineman and tight ends in that scheme, and full backs too sometimes. In the zone scheme, you normally want to have a chance for your down lineman to get some movement on the down lineman."
Q: Why didn't Arizona see its biggest improvement from games 1-2 and 2-3?
Brennan: "I think that's the goal. I think the bye comes at a good time for us. I think it gives us a chance to hopefully get a little bit healthy and clean up some of the things that we did not do well the other night. The other part of that is I've got to give Kansas State some credit. They're a good football team."
Q: Update on Jacory Croskey-Merritt?
Brennan: "I do not. I just feel bad for the young man. I really do."
Q: Are you able to answer what the identity is of this team after saying wanting to wait a few games?
Brennan: "I think we're still finding it. We've had moments of really good football in all three phases and we've had moments of not great football. The consistency piece is what we're trying to achieve. That's up to me and the rest of the coaching staff to continue to take advantage of this time we have this week and next week to not only prepare for a very good Utah team on the road, but to also get our own stuff tightened up."
Q: Any update on Malachi Riley?
Brennan: "He has been with the training staff. That's going to take a little bit of time."
Q: What are some of the things you want the defenders to to be seeing to put themselves in the right place?
Brennan: "Whatever the call is, sometimes those things change with motion or in zone scheme. I would say the biggest culprit is getting our eyes in the backfield which is sometimes a tendency of younger players. Our eyes need to be on our work. They can't be in the backfield."
Q: Why do you think you guys struggled to stop the run this week?
Brennan: "That's a good question. I felt like we did a good job of that a couple of weeks ago, obviously last week was different. The quarterback run I think adds a different element, especially when the kid is as athletic as the kid we played last week. I think that adds another component to it. I think there are some things schematically that we're talking about in terms of giving us a better chance to be cleaner on that."
Q: Do you think the returning players have felt any pressure of expectations?
Brennan: "I would say that is definitley possible. I think that's hard for anyone to handle, a ton of praise or a ton of negativity. That stuff doesn't ever get shut off for them because it comes directly to their phone. Back in the day when we played, it might be in the newspaper but your college friends don't read the newspaper so they weren't going to give you a hard time about dropping a pass or missing a tackle. But now you drop a pass or miss a tackle, you know 10,000 people might blow you up on Twitter and say a bunch of really hard stuff to hear. That's part of their life that they have to deal with and that we have to help them try to deal with. Just watching college football the past couple of weeks, I think there's a lot of people dealing with managing expectations and playing to the level they're capable of playing. We haven't had those expectations coming into a season before so we're definitley battling that."
Q: With the bye coming up, what are the plans in terms of recruiting and coaches getting out on the road?
Brennan: "We'll get out on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It's kind of all over the place where everyone is going. I'm excited about it because I get to see my son play which I've missed the first three games. I get to see that, but then we'll see a bunch of the important kids that we're recruiting in this class."
Q: How do you go about fixing penalties?
Brennan: "To me, I draw a line between the stuff that is fixable --- False start, offside... The ones that happen in the football game, you're trying like hell to avoid, but the ones you can eliminate are the ones that are pre-snap or after the whistle which are catastrophic."
Q: What's the practice schedule this week?
Brennan: "The players were off Saturday and Sunday. Today we met with them and then had a run and now they're lifting. We'll practice on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and then we go recruiting."
Q: What leaves you with optimism that your team can turn this around and have the season that people expected?
Brennan: "I think it's really the leadership of the team. I think we have great young people in that room and I think those are the ones that we're going to lean on because we're going to need their best when their best is needed. I think the expectations of the public, no one has higher expectations than the players and the people in the building do for what we're trying to do so that's part of it."
Q: How do you guys go about getting others not named Tetairoa McMillan involved in the passing game?
Brennan: "I think you saw a little bit last week. Montana (Lemonious-Craig) had a couple good plays. I think we're expecting Jeremiah Patterson to come along. We saw Chris Hunter play a little bit. I think he's a player that can develop in that space and then also the tight end position too."
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