After trailing 21-3 midway through the third quarter, a safety sparked Arizona when Trevon Mason made the play to get his team the ball back.
The Wildcats were able to score quickly on a 29-yard touchdown pass as quarterback Gunner Cruz hit receiver BJ Casteel to make it a one-possession game.
However, specials teams would come back to haunt the Wildcats as kicker Lucas Havrisik missed two critical field goals, one from 32 yards out and another from 44 yards, as Arizona fell short of a comeback losing 24-16 to open up the Jedd Fisch era.
"Disappointing that we did not finish that game off, we felt we had a really good opportunity to win that football game, and we didn't get that done. Hat's off to BYU. They battled," said Fisch. "They came out strong. They came out physical. It was a good game right off the bat all the way through. And they battled. And then they responded when they needed to respond after the little bit of the momentum shift going into the fourth quarter."
It wasn't just the special teams that struggled in the game for Arizona, Cruz started the game going 2-for-5 for eight yards in the first quarter.
"There were some things that we could improve upon. We certainly can't take four sacks. We took two sacks that knocked us out of field goal range, two out of possible go-for-it situations. We can't do that," said Fisch. "We had a couple of guys open in the end zone and wound up having a misread here or misread there, which we need to improve upon. But you want to talk about a kid that battled? I mean, this guy's got four years of football left in him, and he battled his tail off. And I can't tell you, this is not easy. Go to a neutral site with 50-something thousand people in an NFL stadium, think it said 54,000, and be able to go down and still battle and battle and battle. I feel really, really good about the way Gunner played tonight."
After early struggles, Cruz was able to find his rhythm becoming a major part of the team's comeback effort before throwing a costly interception late in the fourth quarter.
"We were expecting a lot of cover two. They started two-high safety, they rolled to cover three on the snap and thought the safety was coming down to bite on the route that we had, reset, threw it up, and kind of looked over to the side," said Cruz. "Saw a post-high safety there. I mean, it's just the bad read. I've got to be better than that. And that had a big impact on the game."
Overall, Cruz was able to make plays when his team needed it the most by going 34 for 45 for 336 yards and a touchdown plus the interception to end his night.
"I mean, I wish we would have won. We didn't do enough, because we didn't come out with the win. I think there was some good stuff. There's some bad stuff," said Cruz. "And we'll be able to go back and watch the film and break down what happened. And have a good week of practice to correct everything that went wrong and game plan for San Diego State."
Arizona had its struggles and positive moments on the defensive side of the ball throughout the game, giving up just 207 yards through the air but allowing two passing touchdowns and a 67-yard strike to give BYU what seemed to be a commanding 21-3 lead at the time.
"I love the way our guys battled, and I love the energy and the fight. And I could just tell you, I looked at JB Brown with 48 seconds left after we lined up to kick a field goal. I said JB, we're going to make this field goal, we're going to onside kick, and we're going to win this game," said Fisch. "And he goes, I know. And when you have that type of passion and that type of energy, you know, it didn't work out. But these guys, these guys love coach [Don] Brown. They love our coaches. They love the assistant coaches, they love their teammates, and we're going to be a pretty good football team."
Arizona will host its home opener Sept. 11, as the team plays 1-0 San Diego State for the first time since since 2001 when the Wildcats beat the Aztecs 23-10 during a road game to open up the season.
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