Arizona is 4-1 for the second year in a row following Saturday’s 34-7 home win over Cincinnati. Brent Brennan is the first UA coach to start 4-1 in consecutive seasons since Dick Tomey in 1993-94.
That’s cause for celebration, at least until Sunday when the team gets back together to prepare for its next game at West Virginia.
“We’re going to enjoy this tonight, and then we’re going to get back tomorrow on our process,” Brennan said. “And that is one day at a time, one meeting at a time, one practice
at a time, one rep at a time. That is where we live.
“We’re in a one week season every week, and that’s all that matters.”
Our full game recap can be found here. Below is what Brennan, linebacker Chase Kennedy and receiver Brandon Phelps said afterwards:
Brennan on the offensive game plan: “We come in this game knowing that we needed to run the football, and had some ups and downs trying to do that the last month of the season. I thought Coach Oglesby put together a great plan for running the football, and I thought Coach Doege called a great game. And the combination of the physicality of our offensive line and just the running backs, running with some real violence, made that stuff a lot of fun to watch.”
On overcoming injuries to all 3 starting receivers: “I thought they did a great job. I think that’s one of those things you can’t plan for. I feel for those young men that got banged up tonight because they’re such big parts of our team. But we also know that all season we’ve been talking about the depth of the receiver room, and that’s going to be super, super critical now as we move forward. And those young players are ready to play, and I think that part of it, Bobby’s done a great job of building that room. And so now the next part of our process is like kind of tailoring some of the scheme to what they do best.”
On the defense nearly posting its first shutout since 2013: “Lights out. I mean, lights out, considering what Cincinnati had been able to do prior to tonight. They wanted to run the ball. We knew that, and we said no. We’re not going to do that tonight. And that’s just a commitment and a mentality from the defensive staff and defensive players, and I thought that was awesome. I think we can feel great about tonight. We’re not going to worry about next week or down the road, we’re just focused on tonight, and I thought our defense was awesome. The way we flew around, the physicality that we played with, the plays people made, our tackling, population to the football, like that showed up, and that’s something that we needed to show up against a team that had been so effective running the football. So that was awesome. It was outstanding.”
On Brandon Phelps: “Brandon Phelps is an awesome young man. He’s a great kid, and he’s just a hard worker. And to be honest with you, like earlier in his career here, he’s had some unfortunate injury stuff. You were always were excited about him when he was able to practice, and excited about him in the off season because of how hard he trains and his numbers and the athlete that he is physically. Numbers wise, he had one of the best off seasons of our entire team this past year, but it’s great to see him start to make plays, and because he’s tough and because he’s smart, he’s also a guy that you can line up in any of the spots, and he can play them all at a high level.”
On Ismail Mahdi and Max Harris getting declared ineligible: “Of course we’re disappointed. That’s one of those things that’s out of our control, and we respect the legal process. But I’m definitely disappointed for those two young men.”
On what the plan is for them going forward: “I found out at 6 o’clock (Friday), and the plan at that time was to kick ass tonight, and that’s what we did, so I’ll figure that out tomorrow.”
On Noah Fifita being able to throw on the move: “That’s one of his superpowers, is his ability to throw the ball accurately on the move. It really is, and you saw that show up a bunch tonight. But I think we’ve seen it show up before, too. I’ll tell you guys every day, twice a day, if you want to hear it. I’m so glad Noah Fifita plays for Arizona.”
On overcoming another sack on the first offensive play: “I was really excited about it, because we also we also answered with a 3-and-out on defense. So just there were a lot of moments in that game of outstanding complementary football,.Good offense and good defense, and that’s that’s what we want to get to, and that’s why us being so focused on our process is so important.”
On the fumble that turned into a penalty on Cincinnati: “Huge impact on the game. I think that’s going to be one of the most painful lessons for Antwan (Roberts) about ball security in the open field. That’s the amount of time and effort and energy that we put into teaching, coaching, drilling ball security. And we got bailed out because the kid batted it out of the back of the end zone. So for Antwan, really tough lesson, but also not a bad result.
On the Family Weekend crowd: “It was awesome tonight. Like that was a big time college football atmosphere. We had an undefeated team coming here, and I just thought everybody, the fans, and everybody showed out, and it was just an awesome environment to to be a part of in the city. And I thought our players felt it and responded to it.”
Kennedy on the defensive approach: “The game plan needed to be physical and violent, in everything we do, every movement, in every slant and blitz, and that was really all it was. Coach G always tells us that it’s the players who make the plays, so we just go out there, try to to the best of all abilities. Really, just be physical. That was the game plan.”
On stopping the run: “We know they came into the game averaging around 270 rushing yards a game, and so the goal is to keep them under 100, and we knew that we had a great chance to win if we did that. And once we stopped the run we knew everything was going to be in our hands.”
On defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales’ reaction to the late TD allowed: “He’s already started on the sideline even once it was over. He always wants to be able to finish games, play 100 percent with redline from start to finish. He’s gonna talk about it a lot just because he wants whoever is in the game to play to the best of their abilities, play within the scheme, and make plays. So the standard isn’t lower for anybody, so I’m sure he’ll have a lot to say about that one.”
On overcoming injuries to teammates: “We talk about response a lot within the program, and so that’s just all we do, we just respond to any and everything that’s in our way.”
Phelps on stepping up when other receivers went down: “That’s just something that we always talk about during the week is just being prepared and knowing the plays. There wasn’t any shock. Bobby (Wade) came in and said ‘we’re gonna do exactly what we’re gonna do, and there’s gonna be no humps. And I mean, we did it. We went out there and we came out and scored right right at the second half. So we’re all prepared and we’re all ready to go. And it’s just the next man up mentality.”
On his TD catch: “We’ve been running that play all week. I knew that ball was coming to me because they were rushing really hard to the run, because I was out there blocking a lot and so you could hear the guys like ‘run, run, run! And so I slipped through and then made a play on the ball and made one miss and touchdown.”
On the running backs: “They do what they do. I mean, they are some of the hardest hitting people on our team, and they execute every single thing with violence. They even got a shirt that’s talking about waking up and choosing violence. You see Ked run, you see Quincy run. As a defender, if I played defense I would not want to be in front of that.”
On Fifita connecting with other receivers: “He didn’t flinch at all. Noah has complete faith in every single person in our room down to the last guy, and he knew what he was going to do, and we knew what we were going to do and come out and play in the second half, and we were going to go win this game. We had no doubt in our minds that we were going to come out and execute exactly what we needed to do.”
On seeing teammates get hurt: “Those are your brothers. We’ve been grinding since January, right after the Holiday Bowl, we got about two weeks off, and we’ve been grinding since then. And you’re with those guys 10, 12 hours a day, and you create like such a connection with those guys. So of course, you’re going to feel an emotional kind of step up with that. But at the same time, like you’re going to want to perform your very best for those guys. Like you tell them you love them. You tell them all that, but you want to perform to your the best of your ability.”
On coming back from his own injuries: “Getting getting hurt is tough, man. It’s tough mentally, tough physically. But going back to redline, bro, every single day I would show up and I would redline my rehab. I would redline. I would keep staying in the playbook, and it’s just something I continue to do every single day.”
