• POSTGAME BREAKDOWN: Arizona falls to SDSU

Arizona seemed to have turned a corner coming into Saturday night's game against San Diego State after the team's gritty performance in a 24-16 loss to BYU to open up the season.

That corner wasn't turned, and SDSU made that clear in the first quarter as the Aztecs jumped out to a 21-0 lead over the Wildcats, deflating any momentum the team had gained from the previous week.

After falling behind 21-0 to start the game and giving up gains of 55 and 73 yards, Arizona (0-2) couldn't recover, falling 38-14 and extending the longest losing streak in program history to 14 games.

"When you can't do anything on offense, it's really hard on the defense. And then with the defense, when you give up explosives and scores happen quickly it's hard to kind of get your composure back," said head coach Jedd Fisch. "But I thought our guys did that, and I thought they found their composure. I thought they were able to do so when we answered the bell when I was 21-0, and we scored the next drive to make it 21-7. I thought we would get it going and make it 21-14, and then just play normal football."

Arizona's defense struggled to stop SDSU's offense through the air and on the ground as the Aztecs racked up 454 total yards including 271 rushing yards. Running back Greg Bell led the way for his team with his 17 carries for 125 yards and a 55-yard touchdown run to open up the game.

Offensively, Arizona wasn't much better as the team struggled to move the ball downfield, collecting just five first downs. The Wildcats couldn't find any rhythm and finished with 228 total yards for the game.

Last week, quarterback Gunner Cruz showed promise by going 34 for 45 for 336 yards and a touchdown, putting his potential on display.

Cruz couldn't repeat his performance and struggled against SDSU, going 10 for 20 for 70 yards and a touchdown. His issue of holding on to the ball was highlighted for the second week in a row as he was sacked three times, bringing his total to seven on the season.

"I took Gunner out for a few reasons. I didn't just take Gunner out because we weren't moving the ball. Donovan Laie got hurt, Jordan Morgan got taken out of the game. So we didn't have our left guard or our left tackle, and the game was a bit out of hand, but not completely," said Fisch. "And he was getting hit pretty good back there. We weren't doing a good enough job to help them. So I wanted to see if we could get a spark, change it up a little bit different dynamic with Will, and he came in, and he came in slanging."

With the game out of reach, Fisch turned to quarterback Will Plummer in hopes of him creating an offensive spark for the team.

In limited time, Plummer came in and threw for 109 yards on 8 of 17 with a touchdown pass giving the offense some life at the end of the game.

"It's always hard when you go down by that much, and that quick, you're just trying to stay positive; we know that just one play could spark the result in the other way," said Plummer. "So we tried to keep the team morale pretty high, but it just didn't pan out for us in the end."

Coming into the game, it seemed like Arizona had found its quarterback in Cruz after a solid performance against BYU last week. However, after the offensive struggles and difficulty of getting the ball downfield, it's safe to say that the quarterback battle is still alive heading into the team's final nonconference game against Northern Arizona.

"We'll look at the tape and figure it out, but right now, I'm completely unsure of what we're going to do with the quarterback position," Fisch said. "One of the two of them will start. I know that."

Arizona will be back in action next week against NAU with hopes to end its losing streak. The game against the Lumberjacks is set to kick off at 7 p.m. MST on Pac-12 Networks.

"I think everybody's pretty pissed. I mean, we've been on this losing streak for a while now, and it's getting really tiring. It's getting really old," Plummer said. "And I think that the kids on our team are really pissed off and we're ready to come back, ready to work and we know that nobody's out here feeling sorry for us. So we're going to come to work on Monday and we're going to try to get away next weekend."

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