Arizona’s game against Texas Tech Saturday night was all about the unexpected as the offense for both teams was mostly kept in check in what turned into an unlikely defensive battle between two of the top offensive teams in the country. Eventually, the Wildcats took charge in the fourth quarter with their ground game highlighted by a 99-yard drive that lasted over seven minutes capping a 28-14 victory for Arizona.
It was the first win over a nonconference Power Five opponent for the Wildcats (2-1) since they beat Oklahoma State back in 2012.
Texas Tech (2-1) was first on the board but it took the Red Raiders until the final minute of the first quarter to score as SaRodorick Thompson ran the ball in from a yard out to give his team an early lead. The Wildcats evened the game early on in the second quarter as redshirt sophomore Stanley Berryhill III scored Arizona’s first touchdown on a 12-yard pass play with quarterback Khalil Tate.
Tate faced some ups and downs in the first half as he threw two interceptions but was able to make up for the mistakes by taking the ball 84 yards on the ground to score the longest touchdown of his career and give the Wildcats a 13-7 lead before halftime.
The third quarter belonged to Texas Tech as the Red Raiders scored on a pass from quarterback Alan Bowman to receiver McLane Mannix for eight yards and a short-lived 14-13 lead. Arizona junior running back Gary Brightwell came through in the fourth for Wildcats to score a pair of touchdowns to cement the win.
Arizona's defense does a 180 after rocky start this season
The Arizona defense has faced a lot of criticism throughout the last few weeks but tonight it turned out to be the team's key to success. The negativity surrounding that side of the ball and the man in charge of it all, Marcel Yates, reached its height over the last week after UA gave up 41 points to Northern Arizona.
Arizona's veteran players said earlier in the week that they were confident that a couple changes could bring some different results and Saturday that is how it all lined up.
“We have a big sign in front of our locker room that says 'it’s about us' so when we hear people talk and gossip and get on social media and talk about us it doesn’t matter," linebacker Colin Schooler said. "I mean outside of this building there’s really not much that matters here and I think tonight we showed a lot of people that they could be wrong about how we play and how our future's going to look.”
The Wildcats played with more linebackers than on a typical night and that was one of the adjustments that helped bring about better results in Saturday night's game.
“Well each linebacker that we have on the field tonight we brought something different to the table" Schooler said. " So it wasn’t something that they could run a scheme and it would stop everybody. We always had that going on but with that tempo on offense there’s a lot of tendencies that we saw which was helping us play fast.
"Basically we played sound defense tonight.”
Making changes defensively for the Wildcats played a big part in the difference between the first two games of the season and what took place Saturday night. Head coach Kevin Sumlin said one adjustment in Saturday's game was playing a lot more zone to prevent the Red Raiders from hurting the team in the middle of the field while also moving the quarterback out of the pocket.
“We helped our guys out tonight with a lot more zone coverage and playing some people over the top," he said. "Our corners have been pretty good and people have attacked us inside in some three-by-one sets or two-by-two against our safeties, so we switched up a little bit more tonight with a little bit more zone coverage to kind of protect it. And I thought our disguise was good and it gives us the opportunity to do some things."
Tate's running ability important in UA victory
The energy of Arizona’s defense and offense was playing off each other throughout the game especially after Tate’s 84 yard touchdown that would change the pace of the game and put the Red Raiders in a more difficult spot defensively.
“”We implemented some more run plays in this last week," Tate said. "We knew that would be an X-factor in this game, me using my legs a little more. We were just being coachable and luckily my O-line did a great job in blocking that play and it resulted how we wanted it to."
Tate's excited celebration after his career long touchdown was a reminder of what he is capable of when he has the ball in his hand and gets out on the run.
Sumlin said Tate was frustrated early on but his 84-yard touchdown brought a shift in the game plan because defensively it put pressure on Texas Tech and forced Matt Wells' team to worry about that aspect of the offense even more.
“The long run I said, 'it looks like you’re jogging and you’re still faster than everybody on the field why don’t you just open it up and run?' the UA head coach said. "You know he’s got real talent and real speed. There’s probably more yards out there that everybody saw, but he is a real threat whenever he has the ball in his hands. And, I think some of the blitzing that we saw early in the game calmed down right after that run.
"That changed, what I could see, because once he broke the first level it was over. Defensively, he puts pressure on people from that standpoint and I think that really helped our running game schematically just because of that big play."
Arizona is off next week as it has its second bye of the year but returns back to Arizona Stadium Sept. 28 to take on UCLA (0-3) in their first Pac-12 Conference game of the season.
