The struggles for the Arizona run defense continued Saturday afternoon in the Pac-12 opener as Cal defeated the Wildcats 49-31 on the back of 274 rushing yards and three touchdowns from Golden Bears RB Jaydn Ott.
It did not take long for the Arizona run defense to show its flaws again as two plays into the game, Ott took it to the house for a 73-yard touchdown. Jayden de Laura and the Wildcats offense were able to quickly respond with a 75-yard drive capped off by a one-yard touchdown by Jonah Coleman.
Arizona forced a stop which was followed by a 92-yard touchdown drive capped off with another one-yard score, this time by Michael Wiley to give the Wildcats a 14-7 lead.
The second quarter saw a lot more back-and-forth scoring that included four straight scores to end the half. Arizona seemed to get whatever they wanted offensively, but so did Cal as a 37-yard field goal for Tyler Loop gave the Wildcats a 24-21 lead heading into halftime. One of the touchdowns for the Wildcats in the quarter came as a jump ball from de Laura to Tetairoa McMillan in the end zone for a 24-yard touchdown.
Cal dominated the whole third quarter outscoring Arizona 14-0 as Ott and the Cal rushing attack continued to dominate the Wildcats run defense. The run game for the Golden Bears also opened up the passing game for Jack Plummer, who finished the game throwing for 245 yards and three touchdowns.
"They had the ball for most of [the third quarter]," Fisch said. "We had three possessions. We had five possessions in the first half and scored on four of the five, you know disappointed we didn't score on the first possession of the second half. I thought we were in good position, especially after the first play of the second half."
After Plummer had been sacked 12 times in the first three games, this was poised to be a potential big performance for the Arizona pass rush and it wound up being the complete opposite.
"We just didn't execute the assignments the way we were supposed to," Kyon Barrs said. "We just got to get back to the drawing board and get ready for Colorado."
de Laura and Jacob Cowing connected on a 14-yard touchdown in the early part of the fourth quarter to cut the deficit to 42-31 as Arizona looked to make a late comeback. The teams traded punts and Arizona drove drove into Cal territory with just under six minutes left but de Laura overthrew McMillan for an interception. Two plays later, Ott ripped off another touchdown run of over 70 yards.
"I feel like there was a chance in that fourth quarter when it was 42-31 and we got the stop and the ball back," Fisch said. "We felt really good about our chances to drive back down and make it a four point game."
The Arizona offense had no trouble moving the ball,. de Laura completed 27 of 45 passes for 401 yards and two touchdowns. Cowing and Dorian Singer both exceeded 100 yards receiving, while Tanner McLachlan hauled in six passes for 88 yards.
"I think we have good receivers, you know I don't think there's a question about that and we have a good quarterback and a good passing game," Fisch said. "What we need to do is continue to build off that and see how good it can become."
The Wildcats will look to get back over .500 next Saturday as they host Colorado with kickoff scheduled for 6:30 p.m. (MST).
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