Arizona (3-6, 1-5 Pac-12) continues to struggle after falling to Utah 45-20 this past weekend. The Wildcats struggled with ball security as they fumbled the ball seven times and lost four of them. Jayden de Laura completed just 10 of 20 passes for 159 yards, while Jacob Cowing lost two fumbles. The highlight of the game for the Wildcats was the rushing attack led by Michael Wiley who took six carries for 64 carries and came one yard short of a 58-yard rushing touchdown.

"I spent yesterday watching the tape from Saturday night," Fisch said. "I was looking at a bunch of things where we were, where we are getting ready for UCLA. Had a great team meeting, did a lot of film work yesterday getting ourselves ready to go, cleaning up the game from Saturday. I went back and looked; 28, 26, 25, 70, 31, 31, 20, 25. That is the point differential on the games that have played at Utah the last 10 games. No one seems to come real close when you go to Utah and unfortunately we were another one of those teams that lost by three scores similar to the last eight teams that played there. We got to figure out a way to make our homefield similar to theirs. I think what they have is an incredible aura over there. People go there and play extremely well. They play extremely well and people struggle against them. Looking back I think I saw UCLA last year lost by 20 at Utah against them, lost by 46 in 2019 against them at their place and I know when I was their in 2017, we lost by 31 against them. We got to find a way to make our homefield similar to theirs. They have an incredible crowd, incredible energy. People don't want to play their and that's what we want Arizona Stadium to be like. We kickoff at 12:00 against Washington State. We just found that out, so that'll be a big noon kickoff for our next home game but this week is all focused in on UCLA and playing a very good team. I don't know if this is normal or not to play four teams in the top-10 in the last five weeks. I'm not sure if anyone else in the country has done that and I don't know where Washington is ranked currently but I know they are 7-2 so for the last five weeks, our opponents are 38-7. This is one of those weeks that we're playing another team that is 8-1 and have accomplished what our goal is to accomplish over the course of these next 4-5 years which is go somewhere. Coach [Brian] Kelly arrived at UCLA in 2017. We were 6-6, 6-0 at home and 0-6 on the road at UCLA in 2017 and lost our bowl game. He went there and went 3-9, 4-8, 4-5, 8-4 and now sitting there at 8-1 and No. 9 in the county so hats off to that build over there those last five years and that's our goal to get to a place where we can do the same. Looking forward to the challenge. They're a fantastic football team, extremely well-coached on all lives. Their offensive line coach I think is an excellent football coach. I coached with him at Michigan. You can see how well they're running the football, coach [Tim] Drevno. Their defensive coordinator Bill McGovern I have known for a very long time back to the Bergen Catholic days and back to New Jersey in the 80's and obviously he is a great coach. They brought him in. Ken Norton and I coached together at Seattle. One of my favorite people I have ever coached with. DeShaun Foster, same thing and then I have a ton of respect for coach Kelly so we got our work cut out for us and we're looking forward to the challenge."

On the status of Jacob Cowing

"We'll know more in the next few days," Fisch said. "We don't know yet exactly if he'll be good to go or not."

On Cowing's practice status

"We'll see Tuesday if he is going to be limited or not," Fisch said. "I'll know better tomorrow morning after we get another day of treatment in. Yesterday was his first day of treatment, but today is his first day one day post-game so we'll see what that looks like."

On the process of freshman players considering redshirting

"They all want to play," Fisch said. "We don't talk about redshirting really. They all have four years of football. You don't never know what's going to happen so if you have the opportunity to play, they are chomping at the bit to go in. None of them want to be held out, none of them want to be held back. We don't really talk about it. It's not a topic of conversation for us. When they have been recruited here, that class of '22 that we brought in, every one of them I told I expect to play as freshman. There was no hiding that. That is what they were told when they chose to sign with us and those chose to commit to us. They knew they were going to be part of the build, a very big part of it and as each week has gone on, more and more pieces have become more and more involved. I'm excited to continue to see maybe a couple more this week will continue to help us, but there has been no conversation at all regarding redshirt with those guys."

On the play handing Rayshon Luke the ball on his first carry against Utah\

"That was a play I think I saw someone do that I think in 2015," Fisch said. "I think I saw Auburn do that and we ran it in 2017 against Kansas State in the bowl game. I haven't broken that one since. No, that's not true. I ran it with Tayvian Cunningham against Cal. I ran it with Tayvian Cunningham last year and then we ran it this year. It was just a little deceptive run to sneak him through and it worked pretty good. I think we got about a 32-yard gain on it."

On starting Wendell Moe

"The way he has been practicing," Fisch said. "Josh Donovan was a little beaten up from the game before. He wasn't able to take all the reps so we were kind of going through a couple of nicks and bruises their with Josh and Wendell the last two weeks has done a really, really good job at practice. He is very strong. He has lost 38 pounds since he has arrived on campus and you can see him moving very well, you can see him moving the three technique, you can see the confidence he is having so as he was gaining knowledge of our offense, it gave us more of an opportunity to play the two young guards and now we've got two freshman lined up with a sophomore in the middle."

On what happens with Sam Langi

"Sam will have the opportunity to rotate in at guard and at right tackle," Fisch said. "He has been able to play kind of a little bit of jack of all trades. All four positions minus center has been where Sam has rotated through and he'll continue to do that if need be."

On Moe's performance against Utah

"Really well," Fisch said. "He graded out really well. He did a lot of good job. Our run game was very good. We averaged seven yards per play. They averaged 5.7 per play. The problem was we ran 57 plays and they ran 82. We moved the ball at a very good clip. Looking back at the game, we were inside their 40-yard line. I think we had 15 snaps of 52 inside their 40 and a lot of that had to do with the way we ran the ball and a lot of that had to do with running the ball to the left so I thought he did a really good job there. In pass protection, really no deficiencies. One time maybe got beat a little bit, but I thought he had a good first outing and he was extremely excited about going back out there and him and Josh were able to rotate series."

On what Fisch was told by the refs after Wiley's touchdown was called back

"They said that the hand hit the pylon before the ball," Fisch said. "I don't know what that means, but that's what they told me. They said that in pro football, if the ball is in your hand and it hits the pylon, it's a touchdown. In college football, if the hand hits before the ball hits, it is down at the half yard line. That was the explanation that I was given and I accepted it and moved on."

On if Fisch had seen/heard that rule

"No, that was the first time I had ever seen that," Fisch said. "I did not know that rule. I thought it was an extension that is the term used in the NFL, that the ball is an extension of your hand so it was a little bit different in this case."

On the terms of Anthony Simpson running back kickoffs

"There is one if you referring to that he should have stayed in," Fisch said. "A couple of those were right on about the half yard line that you don't have much of an option. I mean you could fair catch it, but we do tell him that if we have a return set-up, we would like to take the return. We don't usually fair catch outside of the goal line, but there was one in the end zone we would have liked him to fair catch."

On using the colorful play sheets on the sidelines

"I think it's more the older you get, the more glasses you need and I think it is more for size purposes than anything else," Fisch said. "I have had the bigger call sheets, the smaller call sheets. I like to have two sheets rather than one because I like to doodle on the back of one so I kind of take it instead of one big sheet that has front and back, I do sheets 8.5 by 11 and leave the back empty to be able to write on."

On Scottie Graham and Arizona's ball security issues against Utah

"He didn't have to handle it because I was about ready to lose my mind so I lost it for all of us on that one," Fisch said. "The running backs handled the ball well first of all, so coach Graham's group did handle the ball well but he is our ball security coach for the group. We put the ball on the ground seven times. The quarterback and wide receiver position, Jacob and Jayden particularly. That is not ok. They know that. There was a couple of times on an exchange that unfortunately the running back might have been credited for it on the one that hit Mike Wiley's elbow but all of that is preventable. I didn't see any fumble that I would say wasn't a preventable fumble. The question becomes how much of the elements affected the ball. I would say a lot, but I would also say that's not an excuse. They put it on the ground twice and we had a couple of other chances I thought for an interception based on high balls that probably flew out of his hand or a tipped ball based on the weather. In the end, you can't drop snaps. You can't fumble the ball. You've got to understand the wind in some of those punt situations, especially that one with Jacob. The wind started howling and you got to let it bounce. I thought in the game at the moment, we should have fielded it but then you watch the TV copy and you see how that ball just kind of spun at the last second. If you can't field it, we just got to live with it. That was a tough one though because it looked like he was right underneath it and then the wind blew and I think he just kind of put his hands out there and hoped to catch it."

On Jayden de Laura's performance

"We weren't very good in any area," Fisch said. "In the passing game, I thought that we had too many drops. We shouldn't have ever had a 4th-and-20. We hit Tanner [McLachlan] on a tight end over the middle screen that should have put us at a 4th-and-5. The first play of the game, we had a seam ball to Tanner that we should have made. I thought there were a couple of times that we left our read early. We never should have thrown the go ball down the sideline on 3rd-and-4. We had Dorian Singer on a shallow crosser in zone coverage for a first down. I thought we got a little bit excited back there. I thought that the ball, the elements were kind of affecting us. I thought we didn't handle the full passing game the way we normally would and in turn, we wound up having I think three drops that I can think of, Cowing with one, Tanner with two and I think we are certainly a better football team than we showed."

On Jaxen Turner looking a little tentative tackling

"Jaxen, you probably saw he was bandaged up pretty good or braced up pretty good on his right hand," Fisch said. "As you said, everybody is dealing with something. He has had a few other injuries, nicks and nacks, bruises but I didn't find him to be hesitant or tentative. We just tried to rotate him and Isaiah Taylor a little bit more than usual to try to keep them fresh."

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