In the last press conference of the week before Arizona's final nonconference game of the regular season on Saturday against North Dakota State, head Jedd Fisch spoke to the media Thursday afternoon.

Here are five takeaways from what he had to say as his team prepares to face the Bison this weekend.

Fisch talked about the drastic change in style of play Arizona will be facing going from Mississippi State to North Dakota State.

"They are coming off going from the true Air Raid of Mike Leach to a two-back, I-Back, power team," Fisch said. "I wouldn't even say a pro-style. I would say they're an old school pro-style."

Arizona has faced quite the range of offenses already this season going from a run-heavy system at San Diego State that is still willing to drop back and throw the ball, to the Air Raid offense of Mississippi State and now an offense that looks to run downhill all game in North Dakota State.

Fisch talked about the consistent style of play the Bison have brought to the field for a while.

"The thing that makes them unique as well is they've been doing it for so long and doing it the same way for so long," Fisch said. "There is a lot of plug and play so to speak."

The Wildcats have added the brother of Tia Savea, Traemaine, to the roster as a graduate transfer after he played with Northern Arizona last season.

"We were just looking, we had 109 spots on our roster," Fisch said. "We wanted to take it to the 110 number. We also feel like the [defensive line] is a great position of depth. Also good for Tia to have his brother here."

Fisch also said Tia Savea "looks like he is going to be a go" this weekend after leaving the last game early due to an injury.

With the way North Dakota State likes to run the ball and take time off the clock, it usually leads to fewer positions for the other team making each individual possession that much more important for Arizona this week.

"Because of how much time that they keep the ball, each possession has a little bit more value," Fisch said. "If normally you have a chance to get 12 or 13 possessions and maybe you only get 11, I don't know exactly the numbers but I think it all depends on how many three-and-outs can we get. How many times can we force them to punt."

Fisch added how much more important taking care of the ball is in a game like this.

"We can't turn the ball over," Fisch said. "It is really important in a game like this that you can maintain possession of the ball when you have it. If we have to give it to them, it has to be through a kick whether that be a kickoff or a punt."

After a successful season opening win over San Diego State where Arizona ran the ball 39 times, the Wildcats did not have the same success in the loss to Mississippi State after totaling just 22 rush attempts.

"It is always important to be able to run the football," Fisch said. "The key is to be able to be in down and distance to call the runs."

Fisch said he never lost patience with the run game last weekend. He simply was not in the position to be able to call running plays with Arizona consistently finding itself well behind the chains.

"Then the score and the time dictated a different situation with eight minutes or so left down a few possessions," Fisch said. "For us last week, we got into bad [down and distances] and that caused us to get away from some runs or we would have a run on first-and-10 that wouldn't go anywhere and now you're saying to yourself 'It's second-and-10, what's the best situation here to be able to get two downs to get the first?' ... I'm hopeful that we're not going to be in that situation too often and we're able to stay balanced because that is certainly our goal."

The Wildcats have won the coin toss in each of their first two games. In the opening game against San Diego State, they deferred to the second half before deciding to receive the kickoff against Mississippi State.

Fisch talked about what goes into making that decision.

"We felt we had a good set of openers that we felt like we were comfortable and could move the ball," Fisch said on deciding to take the opening kickoff this past weekend. "We had some plays we thought were going to hit."

It is also possible Fisch wanted the ball first to gain some early momentum against a tough opponent and get the crowd engaged and active early.

"It is also kind of the team you are playing," Fisch said. "Where do you feel their strengths are, where do you feel your strengths are."

Fisch said he "traditionally" would defer to the second half and referred to the last four minutes of the first half and first four minutes of the second half as the "middle eight."

"If you can control both like we did against San Diego State where we scored to go into the half and then scored coming out of the half, you have about 28 real live minutes or 30 minutes because you have halftime plus those possessions that their offense isn't on the field," Fisch said. "If you can go 14-0 in that, let's call it the middle eight, that to me is usually a great indication of winning."

Arizona will host North Dakota State in the first-ever meeting between the two teams this Saturday at Arizona Stadium with kickoff set for 8 p.m. (MST) on FS1.

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