Fresh off its bye week, Arizona enters the final three weeks of the regular season needing to win out to make a bowl game. It starts off with a game against Houston Friday night at Arizona Stadium.

"Houston is coming to town and they're a hot team right now," UA head coach Brent Brennan said. "They've won three of their last four and we need Tucson, our fans, alums and students to show up and rock this stadium. I know everybody is frustrated with where we're at, and we need them to show up anyway.

"We need to make this thing hard to play in. We need to impact third down, we need to impact the red zone with crowd noise and enthusiasm and juice and energy."

During the bye, the players used the week off to "get back to some fundamental football" as they also did in their first open date earlier in the season.

"It gave all of the players a chance to do a little more individual time, so you get a chance to go back to a little bit of fundamental work," Brennan said. "For all three phases of our team, it's a great opportunity to get into some self scout and find out what our tendencies are and what are the things that keep showing up that we like to do and how we become predictable in any way."

The bye week also allowed the coaching staff to go on the road for recruiting, which Brennan said went well and was good to "fly the colors around all the areas that we need to fly the colors."

Brennan's message to the team entering this final stretch of the season revolved around wanting to end the year on a strong note despite the struggles compared to the expectations entering this season.

"How do you want this to feel every day? This last stretch of the brotherhood," Brennan said. "How do you want this to end? That's something they all lean into heavy and I think attacking the work and finishing this thing the right way is what everybody in the program should be all about right now. We have three games left and they're all going to be tough, but that's why you play the games. ... Let's put everything we've got into these next three weeks, starting with this week, and what we're doing right now."

Houston, which is also coming off a bye, has won three of its last four games including most recently an upset win over Kansas State.

"I think they're hot right now," Brennan said. "I think they're playing good football. They obviously had had a huge win before their bye week beating Kansas State. The quarterback is an outstanding player. He can make the throws, but he is also an incredibly dynamic runner so that's one of the things that we have to be prepared for.

"... We have a ton of respect for coach Fritz and that staff. Those guys have been good everywhere they have been. They've won everywhere they've been, so we know that we got a big time football game Friday night."

Kickoff for Friday's game is set for 8:15 p.m. MST at Arizona Stadium.

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