What Jedd said: Arizona begins preparations for Territorial Cup game

Arizona (4-7, 2-6 Pac-12) will take on its rival, Arizona State, in the annual Territorial Cup game this Friday in hopes of avenging last season's 38-15 loss in Tempe.

ASU (3-8, 2-6) currently holds a five-game winning streak against UA.

Wildcats head coach Jedd Fisch had a chance to talk to the media on Monday, in what will be his lone availability ahead of the matchup, to discuss what he saw on film after Saturday's game against Washington State plus his thoughts in the rivalry matchup with the Sun Devils.

Here's a transcript of everything he said during his final weekly Monday press conference.

"Red out this week. Hopefully we can fill this place up. One o'clock kickoff. I know everybody likes to talk about what time kickoffs are. One o'clock should be about as perfect as a kickoff can be. So not sure if there's a better kickoff time than one o'clock. So one o'clock after Thanksgiving leads to nobody have anything to do other than go to the game. So I don't think there's much work on Fridays. I know there's no school on Friday. So I think Friday is available at one o'clock for everybody to come to see the longest rivalry game, trophy game in the country. I know it's gone back to 1899 when this thing started. So, I gotta think we can fill this place up and have a great crowd on Friday at one o'clock."

"A couple of things from the game the other day. Didn't play very well. When it's all said and done, didn't play well enough to win the game. I thought our defense probably had their best performance of the year. Although I would argue that the performance against UCLA was pretty good as well. I think they've had 10 very good quarters of football in a row now. When you look at the last two quarters of Utah, the four quarters of UCLA and the four quarters that they played [against Washington State]. A couple scores here and there that we let up, a couple scores here and there we gave to him in regards to turnovers on offense. Some interesting things about the game I would say that it was 176 yards by Dorian [Singer]. Dorian's now we got 1,014 yards. Jacob [Cowing] has 1,001 yard, so pretty cool to have to 1,000-yard receivers on the same team with still another game to play only in a 12-game season. TMac (Tetairoa McMillan) is over 700 yards. First time ever at Arizona, that three guys are over 700 yards in the same season. Jayden [de Laura] is fifth right now, all time, fifth also in the country currently at about 3,500 yards. Hope to be able to continue that. I know that he threw the ball for a bunch of yards again last week. Tanner [McLachlan] is second all time in season catches. So there's a lot of good things, especially with the fact that every one of those players will be returning moving forward — I'm hopeful of that. Then, other than that, I think we know what's ahead of us, and all of our focus is on the team up north.

"I think really what happened was, there was a couple of times that I'm sure you're referring to with Tanner. We threw a pic over Tanner's head, which never should have happened. Tanner should have just ran right past the Mike linebacker. I'm not sure what caused Tanner to kind of stop there. There was one where we threw it to Dorian on the other side of number 51, and Dorian kind of got caught up on one side of 51. Dorian came back and said he should have just continued on across behind him. And there was one where our left tackle didn't pick up number eight on a blitz. And we were going to to Cowing on a choice route where he was breaking in and we wound up doing a pick six to the corner. But Jayden was throwing it like he was hot on that throw. He shouldn't have been hot, that was an easy protection with the left tackle, but he was hot because there was a guy running free. So he threw it as he was hot, and Jacob knew he wasn't hot. So it was one of those deals that, unfortunately, we had a protection breakdown that caused an interception for a touchdown. So I would say that two of our interceptions came from just us making mistakes that we haven't made all year that I can think of right off the top of my head. One interception came from a tipped ball that he threw to Jonah where he probably could have just kept running at the end of the game. It was the fourth. At that point in time just run and get us yards. And then I'd say that the Cowing one was a disappointing one. But, all in all, we weren't good enough. We weren't in sync. We need to be better."

"Medical reasons, they were out for this game. We're waiting to find out where we are exactly, medically. If they're cleared. We're hopeful that at least two of the three will be cleared. There are certain protocols that we have to go through before they get full clearance. We'll know better after we have a day of exertion and practice to get exactly a feel for where that's at. Assuming that everything goes according to plan, they would be certainly ready to roll."

"I think it's a huge game. I think it's a huge game for them. I think it's a huge game for our older guys that have been a part of this program for a while and haven't gotten the win. I think it's a big, big game for our young guys that they can help send off our older guys, and take the momentum of winning this game into the offseason. I think it's a big game for our staff. There's been a lot of great improvements in our team as a whole all season long, and it'd be very exciting to be able to finish strong at home. I think that all in all, with our team, they're continuing to improve, they're continuing to get better. But we're not necessarily exactly fully focused on 70-7. We're not focused on last year's score. We're focused on this year's score and what we can do to make sure it goes in our favor."

"The schedule this week will we'll treat Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as we would a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. And then Thanksgiving morning, what we'll do is we'll have all of our players' families here for breakfast with our coaches' families. And that will be from 10:30 to 12. And then after that, we'll let the parents leave. And then we'll head out to have our normal Friday day, which would normally we do it in the morning, but we'll do it in the afternoon. We'll go from 12:30 probably till about 4, 3:30, and then head to the team hotel. Stay together as a team the rest of the night on Thursday. And then Friday, obviously with an early start, we'll just get rolling and play the game and give the players Saturday and Sunday off before we're back together for a meeting on Monday."

"That'll be determined here probably over the course of the next 12 hours or so. I'm going to meet with all of the academic seniors, meaning guys that have been here for four years and all of the seniors whose eligibility has run out. I believe there's only six of those guys. That's eligibility has run out. So clearly, they'll be walking. Then there's 14 or 15, we'll call it academic seniors, guys that have been here for years, that will then make their decision on whether or not they want to walk. After that occurs, then they can make their decision and we can make it as a team on whether or not they'll return. Jalen Harris walked last year. I don't know if you guys remember that, and then he returned. So I think sometimes you just have to figure out, at this point in time, how many guys are going to walk? And then how many guys are going to walk and then come back?"

"A lot of the big rivalries you have the inter-city rivalry, when you talk about USC and UCLA. You have the 'within the state' rivalry, Florida-Florida State where I were I was at. Miami-Florida State. And then you have the neighboring state rivalry, which was Minnesota- Wisconsin for the axe and which was obviously Ohio State-Michigan. And then you have this one, which falls more under the 'within the state' rivalry. Two hours away is pretty close. You're somewhere between LA traffic within the city versus within the state. But I would say that I certainly understood when you have two state universities going against each other the last game of season. It's a big rivalry. Right? And it's Auburn-Alabama, it's Florida-Florida State, it's Arizona-Arizona State. And I'm excited about being a part of it. I know how important it is. I know I was hired after the game in 2020. So I understand the significance of this game. And I think it's one in which that our guys also recognize. There's 29 players on our roster from the state of Arizona, and a lot of them are from that area. So a lot of them are from him that northern part of the state, and it means a lot. You listen to them talk and you listen to what matters to them. This game is a big deal. It's a really big deal. And we gotta make sure that we prepare and play understanding that."

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