Just as it was the case after the loss to Hawaii, Arizona's defense continues to be in full focus for fans coming off the team's second game of the season. The Wildcats earned a victory over Northern Arizona, but giving up 41 points to an FCS opponent has not sat well with the fan base. There have been plenty of pleas from fans on social media to fire defensive coordinator Marcel Yates and any positive point made about the Wildcats' defense is met with a wave of responses about all the negatives.

The response from the fan base is not completely unfounded. The Wildcats currently rank eighth-worst (No. 123) in total defense and fifth-worst (No. 126) in scoring defense among all FBS teams through the first two games of the season. The performance has been anything but impressive even factoring in that Arizona currently leads all FBS programs in turnovers (8) and interceptions (6).

When you're losing to Hawaii and giving up 41 points to Northern Arizona, however, nobody wants to hear about that.

The players understand what the perception of the Wildcats' defense is right now, but they are not ready to concede that sweeping changes need to be made or even that what is broken can't be fixed.

"I know what people see at the end of the day, 41 points to NAU, but there's a lot more that goes into it," redshirt junior cornerback Lorenzo Burns said. "We have to get better, of course. Each week we have to get better. ... We're just gonna keep working. We try to ignore all the white noise outside and just stay focused on what we have to do each week.

"We're the ones on the field, so we just have to stay focused and keep pushing each other to get better each week."

Burns wasn't completely disappointed in what took place against the Lumberjacks last weekend at Arizona Stadium. The Wildcats only gave up 13 points against NAU in the first half of that game before many of the starters were pulled with UA up by 31 points. The veteran cornerback saw positive changes in the group from the season opener against Hawaii.

"During the Hawaii week we kind of looked out of position sometimes and we just weren't vibing as a defense with slip-ups here and there, but in this NAU game everybody was pretty much playing on the same page, celebrating each other's victories and having a good time out there," he said.

Arizona is now in the fourth season under Yates and the players that make up his group have all been recruited by the UA defensive coordinator. Junior linebacker Tony Fields II is one of those players and he has worked with Yates throughout his UA career both closely and from a distance. Yates was the linebackers coach last season after he moved over from coaching in the secondary previously.

Fields was one of the players who was outspoken about the Wildcats' defensive coordinator remaining on staff when the transition of head coaches from Rich Rodriguez to Kevin Sumlin was made after the 2017 season.

The junior from Las Vegas remains in full support of his coach and doesn't believe the criticisms and blame Yates has received from both fans and media alike is warranted at this stage.

"Not at all," Fields said. "Coach Yates is a great defensive coordinator. He calls great plays all the time and it's just all execution. We just have different guys in different gaps or failed coverage, busted coverages and that's what we have to work on as players to help out coach Yates when he's making those great calls."

Fields said he has turned off his notifications on social media platforms to avoid having to hear the negativity from outside the walls of the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility. Burns has simply stayed off social media altogether since the season started to prevent any outside influence on his daily life.

Still, it is clear the players understand what the conversations are like on the outside and it is something they fully expect to hear change as the season moves along.

"It's only us," senior safety Tristan Cooper said about what the team has learned about itself through the first two games. "Sometimes people don't have any faith in us and it kind of motivates us. Everybody says, 'this is supposed to be a defensive school' but we fell off for a little bit. Even our fans that are supposed to be supporting us, it kind of sucks. But, if we stick together and we do perfectly fine at the end of the day we'll be celebrating and hopefully everything will be good."

Arizona (1-1) will have its biggest test of the season so far Saturday night when Texas Tech (2-0) makes its way to Tucson for a meeting with the Wildcats.