In what was Arizona's first win over a Top 25 opponent in the Jedd Fisch era, the Wildcats have revived their season and now look to continue the winning streak for the rest as the team hopes to qualify for its first bowl game since 2017. Here is what coach Fisch said during his weekly Monday press conference.
Opening Statement
"Before we get started, I just want to acknowledge and talk about what's going on at the University of Virginia right now. Our thoughts here at Arizona football are with the families and friends and football community of Charlottesville, Virginia. Obviously it's a terrible loss. And college football is a small tight-knit group and the fact that we lost three student athletes that are football players and what occurred there. I don't know Lavel Davis or Devin Chandler or D'Sean Perry, but I could just imagine what coach Elliot is going through right now, and just our thoughts and prayers are with them at this time. Just a horrible, tragic situation. And I know there's another incident that's going on at the University of Idaho that occurred of students on campus, which is extremely close to Washington State. So I can imagine there's some issues going on up there and the distractions. Scary, scary times and scary stuff. So our thoughts and prayers are with the University of Idaho student body as well. So very, very tough times right now. On a different note, we have had a good day and a half here in preparation for Washington State and closing out the game against UCLA. We've been able to catch up on a little bit of sleep. I think we got in at five o'clock in the morning and coaches got in around 11 yesterday and got started on game planning, reviewing the film of UCLA and started working a little bit ahead on Washington State. And then, additionally, we started all day today. We'll have our players in starting at three o'clock today and we will finish up the UCLA game and then begin all of our focus on the Cougs."
On how things have changed for Arizona after beating UCLA
"Really nothing different has happened for us. We've had great success recruiting. We've had no issues, people returning our calls. We've had no problems with the people excited about our program. We play with a ton of young players. A lot of people in Southern California want to be a part of our program. That's been very evident since we've arrived and it's just the first step in what we believe will be success here in the future. But our job right now is to fully focus on trying to beat Washington State and our guys certainly enjoyed that victory that they had Saturday in Pasadena."
On injured lineman Jordan Morgan's status
"Yeah, Jordan will not play the rest of the season. And other than that, we'll let Jordan disclose whatever injury specifics it is but Jordan will be out for the rest of the year."
On the most satisfying part about beating UCLA
"I think really, it is satisfying to watch our kids work as hard as they work and reap a benefit like that. The fact that we beat a team that was an AP, I think No. 9 in the country in the AP poll and No. 12 in the country in the CFP poll, who had only one loss who hasn't scored less than 30 points all season. A lot of people that were questioning whether we can do that, we were 20-point underdogs. And as I've said, keep making us the underdog, that's great no problem there. But our team's gonna go out there and expect to win and do everything they possibly can to do it. I think our team is very prepared, they work very hard at it and for them to see that if they trust the process of practice, if they trust the process of preparation, then they'll continue to win football games. And right now we're sitting here at 4-6 and really work very, very hard to get these next two."
On who would take over at left tackle following Morgan's injury
"Yeah, Sam [Langi] would be the starter. He would go in and start and then we have a few other options there at the number two spot. We've got Joe Borjon, we've got Jacob Reece. We could always move some guys around if we needed to. Jonah, big Jonah can move out there if we needed to do that. But right now, our plan would be for it to be Sam and Sam did a great job."
On Wendell Moe's performance
"Yeah, I think Wendell Moe is going to keep getting better, more comfortable, feels what college football is like as a freshman and wasn't here. So the fact that he was able to evolve and grow throughout the season and get better each week. My hope is that he gets better this week than last week but thought Wendell had a really good game. And I thought our offensive line in general had a really good game. We ran the ball when we wanted to run the ball and we ran the ball when they knew we were gonna run the ball, which is always the biggest sign of having confidence up front. And when it came down to pass protection, there was a couple of things here and there that got us but for the most part, Jayden had either a clean pocket or threw on the move."
On Jacob Manu's early contributions
"Yeah, well Jacob, along with a lot of those guys, I mean that was one team with Jacob Manu, T-Mac [Tetairoa McMillan], Keyan [Burnett] and Noah [Fifita]. Three of them were starting in the game. T-Mac catching a winning touchdown. Jacob Manu had 10 tackles, two tackles for loss or three tackles for loss I believe, two quarterback pressures. Great hit on the quarterback. That's you know, that's what we're playing with. That's what we are. We love it, we embrace it. When we told you guys we're gonna play with a lot of freshmen, we meant it. When we said we're gonna build the program the way we wanted to build it, we meant it. And you know, you have guys like Jacob Kongaika and Ty Ty [Ta'ita'i Uiagalelei] that both were playing at Mater Dei last year and Ty Ty had a huge sack in the game. You had guys that were truly affecting the game, that were true freshmen. And clearly, Jacob Manu has taken on not just the role of affecting the game but being the leader of the defense."
On the big picture over the next two weeks
"We got to win this game. That's really how I look at it. We have to do everything we possibly can to do everything in our powers to play the best game we can possibly play. And we know we're playing a very good team. I think I saw that they'd been to eight out of nine bowl games the last nine years. I don't know how many years Mike Leach was there than to Rolovich but if you look at that tenure and now to coach Dickert, you look at that tenure, they've had a lot of years of success in a row and they know how to win games. And it's going to be our sole focus to find a way to play our best game this week. We want to play better than we did last week."
On keeping the team grounded after last week's win
"Well, they've not won two games in a row since 2019. September, I believe. So, if that's the case, we need to find a way to get grounded quick and know that it's our job to you know, try to actually go back to back and see if you can win a couple games in a row and our guys, they seem very grounded. They seem very ready to play. They seem focused on trying to get another one. And you know, just like we told them you know, winning four this year compared to one is better than you know winning two or three I guess but winning five would be better than winning four, and winning six will be better than winning five so we have to find a way to keep on building this program up."
On avoiding illness and flu throughout the season so far
"We have not, knock on wood. Knock on wood, we have not had those issues at this point in time. And I'm hopeful that we continue to get vaccinated for the flu. I know that's been a big one. We push that pretty hard. And then also all the COVID vaccinations that our guys can possibly take or get. Hopefully, they continue to do that so we can stay healthy. We can prevent some illness. We can't prevent injury so we might as well try to prevent the illness."
On Jayden de Laura facing his former team
"Well, yeah I would love to just say that it's going to be just another game, you know, for everybody. I would assume that it's going to have some form of an impact on Jayden as a little different situation than Hunter. He was the starting quarterback there, he was the Pac-12 Freshman of the Uear there, and now he's here. On the same token, it's Jayden's job to make sure it doesn't affect him and he doesn't play the game any differently and that he goes out there and he executes in the manner that he executed last week. And I believe he will. I believe in as you all know, I believe in Jayden de Laura very much. I think he has a great skill set. And if he can just play within himself and not let the opponent affect him and treat them like they're nameless and faceless, in a lot of ways that will help him and all of us."
On Chip Kelly saying he's never faced a QB that can run around like de Laura
"I think he practices against DTR [Dorian Thompson-Robinson] everyday."
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