Injuries, emotions get the best of Arizona in 48-28 loss to Oregon

There was a lot of pent up anger on Arizona's side heading into Saturday's game against Oregon (6-5, 3-5 Pac-12 Conference) and it all came out early in what eventually turned into a 20-point loss for the Wildcats (7-4, 5-3) by the end of the night in Eugene. There were personal fouls and lots of barking back and forth between both teams but it was Oregon that found a way to channel the energy into a win behind the return of quarterback Justin Herbert.

The sophomore missed the last five games with a fractured collarbone but he proved to be the spark Saturday night as the Wildcats rarely had an answer for him or the Oregon running game in the loss.

"They played a lot better than us," Rodriguez said on the postgame radio show.

Oregon ran for 353 yards to go with Herbert's 235 passing yards and to compound the issue the Wildcats finished the game without a number of its players up front. Starting defensive tackle Parker Zellers didn't make the trip to Eugene because of a violation of team rules and reserve defensive tackle Kurtis Brown was out with an illness, but that was just the start. Starting defensive end Justin Belknap and starting nose tackle Dereck Boles both went down with leg injuries during the game. Backup defensive tackle Luca Bruno went down on the same play that took out Boles.

That left the Wildcats with little options against a potent running attack Saturday night even forcing the team to use Jack Banda on defense - a player who made the move from defense to tight end earlier in the year.

"Golly, it was a disaster," Rodriguez said. "We had guys play who hadn't even practiced all week with our defense. It's just a mess. It was a mess."

Offensively, Arizona had its issues as well never truly finding a rhythm after an impressive opening drive to take the early lead. Khalil Tate had one of his worst rushing performances so far carrying the ball 14 times for 32 yards. There was no mention of an injury after the game, but he was seen grabbing his leg area during the TV broadcast.

Uncharacteristically, the Wildcats took to the air much more against the Ducks throwing the ball 35 times for 159 yards. Tate had a touchdown pass to Tony Ellison, but he was intercepted two times in the loss.

Oregon worked to force the Wildcats to pass the ball more loading up the box and it led to the Wildcats having just 171 yards on the ground in the loss.

"Well, we had some opportunities the way they were playing us," Rodriguez said. "... I've gotta look at it with coaching and having some plays out there that we could have executed a little better because there because we didn't do a good job of that."

Arizona also had special teams issues in the loss averaging just 31 yards on its punts in the game. The Wildcats used three different punters over the course of the loss and Oregon repeatedly started its drives with good field position.

"Our punt team it's just remarkable how they'll do it in practice but during the game I don't know," Rodriguez said. "We were struggling to stop anybody anyway, so to give them the ball on the 50 it's really not good."

Now Arizona will head back to Tucson to regroup for its final regular season game of the year when it heads to Tempe next week for its annual meeting with Arizona State.