It was a long night at Arizona Stadium, even longer for the players and staff who were in the middle of their pregame preparations when lightning in the area forced everyone off the field. A weather delay of more than two hours led to a kickoff after 9 p.m. PT.
But when the Wildcats returned to the turf, following a lengthy wait in the locker room on the north side of the stadium, they were greeted by a decent number of people who chose to stick around to watch some football.
“I was really, really appreciative
of how our fans hung in there after the weather delay, and the Zona Zoo,” UA coach Brent Brennan said well after midnight following a 48-3 win over Weber State. “We came out of the locker room after those couple hours of delay, seeing the students packed like that. So I thought that was outstanding.”
Arizona improved to 2-0 ahead of a Friday showdown against Kansas State. Our recap of the Weber State win can be found here, along with game grades. Below is what Brennan said afterwards:
On the overall performance: “We came in this game expecting to win, and we did that. I thought the offense was rolling again, and second week in a row the defense holds the team caught a touchdown. You gotta be fired up about that.”
On not looking ahead to Kansas State: “When you go into a game like this, I thought our teams did an incredible job throughout the week with their intentionality, living red line in the practice environment and attacking every phase of it. And I think that showed up tonight, which was really, really exciting. I think the effort and the execution and the accountability showed up.:
On 10 penalties for 80 yards: “Big picture-wise, obviously, I’ve got some work to do in the accountability. We have some work to do in the accountability space, because we were heavily penalized tonight, and it was just too many, just too many. Some of them were avoidable, and some of them are football. We’re going to dive in hard on that and make sure that we’re not putting ourselves in a situation where we we hurt our chances to get the results we want.”
On waiting out a weather delay: “I’ve been in a few of those before, so really, you just sit and wait and you make sure the players and the strength and conditioning staff and the training staff is taking care of the players. I felt like Lauren Vossler snapped in action, making sure we got food for the players. You try and eat roughly four hours before kickoff, it’s kind of the magic number, and then that kickoff keeps getting pushed and pushed and pushed. These guys are big dudes, and they’re hungry, and so you gotta make sure they have gas in the tank. Because it’s a long game, with all the timeouts, we knew it was going to be a long game.”
On getting so many freshmen and scout team players into action: “It’s good for those guys to get some live reps and get the feel from the speed of the game and get an opportunity to play. Those guys work every day just as hard as everybody else, and so when you do get an opportunity like that, it’s great to get those guys out there. It’s kind of a win win, to win for our football team and in terms of the next opponent, get a little bit of rest. And it’s also a win for those players that work their tails off, you know, every day and don’t always get a chance to play.”
On which freshman stood out the most: “I think it might be Wesley. That was late in the game, but I thought he ran confidence, he ran with physicality. He seemed to have really good vision out there.”
On if the defense was disappointed about not getting a shutout: “Of course they were. You always talk about that, especially when you go that deep into a game and you have a chance to get it done. I think part of that also is that, we gave some other guys a chance to play. I think (the starters) were more happy to see some of those guys play, some of those freshmen get out there and run around and make some tackles and block some guys and run the football.”
On Noah Fifita bouncing back from Week 1: “I don’t think Noah necessarily looks at it as trying to make up for it, but he wants to play better, he just has such a high standard for himself, and we all have such a high standard for him. And so I thought it was great the way we executed the first half on offense, I think we scored on every possession. The stuff I talked about last week, like some of the improvement, I thought we were better in the red zone tonight than we were a week ago. I think we were better on third down as well. So that stuff was all really exciting to me, because those were areas of emphasis for us this last week of practice.”
On Rhino Tapa’toutai’s return to action: “It was funny, on his second series, and we try to up tempo, and the whole of the line was down (the field). And then I saw Rhino coming. He just hadn’t played in a year, so he was gassed, but I thought he did some really good stuff, and so I think we’re all excited for him. When you have an injury like that, it’s a long road back, and there’s some long days and some lonely days and some hard moments. Rhino was the kid that doesn’t go home for Christmas break,he doesn’t go home for spring break, because he’s in rehab. That’s how committed he was. And so we’re excited to get him back in the fold. And hopefully, as he continues to build his condition level, and that kind of thing, that he’ll be able to contribute in more meaningful ways, but we’re all excited to have him out there.”
On Montana transfer LB Riley Wilson making his UA debut: “We have high expectations for Riley. He was unavailable for some training camp with an injury, we’re glad he’s back now. And so I think everyone’s gonna love watching that guy, he plays with crazy red line. He’s got physicality to him, has a nose for the football, it’s gonna be a lot of fun.”
On WR Nunu Whatley’s performance: “I was on his head on on Wednesday about playing faster, just all the time, and I think that showed up tonight.”
On Whatley becoming the deep threat: “To make those throws, those long throws, and complete them in stride where the receiver doesn’t have to slow down, is really impressive. And so those balls are on the money. And then Nunu was able to finish him, which was really, really exciting.”
On the run game: “I think we’re going to be disappointed we didn’t run ball as well this time. I think we can be much better in that, in that regard, but it was fun to see us be explosive offensively.”
On his message to LB Jabari Mann on his targeting ejection: “Don’t do it. Keep your head out of it. You know better, like that’s an easy one. He knows better, been playing football for a long time. Targeting is not a new rule.”
