Arizona Aftermath: Storylines, stats and quotes from the Wildcats’ season-opening win over NAU

At least that’s how the Arizona Wildcats are looking at their 35-7 season-opening win over Northern Arizona at Casino Del Sol Stadium.

Arizona running back Kedrick Reescano, who scored two rushing touchdowns on Saturday, said, “half the country lost today. We came out with a win. Be proud of that.”

Arizona has won five straight season openers since 2022 and is 3-0 in season openers under head coach Brent Brennan, who said the Wildcats “showed up ready to play.”

“Our guys were excited,” said Brennan. “I thought our coaching staff did a fantastic job preparing them to play. … There’s a lot to be excited about from that. Coming into it, the thing we were focused on was ball security, special teams execution, tackling, avoiding stupid penalties. I think there was a lot of good there.”

There were also some valuable lessons learned, like backup quarterback Sawyer Anderson’s first pass as a college quarterback being a touchdown … for the Lumberjacks. Anderson threw an interception to NAU safety Noble Young-Blackgoat, who returned it 36 yards for a pick-six — NAU’s only points of the night.

The Wildcats also lost two fumbles, albeit the NAU defender who punched out the ball behind wide receiver Giovanni Richardson was out of bounds and returned to the field of play.

“I think we have some work to do, but I was encouraged by what I saw,” Brennan said. “I think our guys played extremely hard. Redline was evident, you could see it. I also think we can improve on some of that. This team cares about each other, they’re deeply connected, they’re a lot of fun to coach. For thing that didn’t go well, they’re going to fix. They’re committed to diving in and fixing those things, because that’s what we need to do.”

Here are notable storylines, statistics and quotes from Arizona’s win over NAU — and a look at what could be the toughest game of the season for the Wildcats.

Noah’s night

Fifita had one of his most efficient passing performances as a Wildcat, completing 22 of 29 (76%) of his passes for 262 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. Saturday night was Fifita’s best completion percentage since his 92.3% completion rate against Houston last season.

Including Saturday night, Fifita has six games with a completion rate of 75% or higher (with a minimum of 10 pass attempts).

In the first three drives, Fifita was 11 for 13 passing for 152 yards and two touchdowns. Fifita completed 13 consecutive passes in the first half, which marked a personal best for the fifth-year quarterback. Fifita was 4 for 6 passing to start, but wide receiver Tre Spivey dropped his first attempt over the middle and wide receiver Chris Hunter’s catch out of bounds, despite dragging his foot inbounds, was upheld after Arizona challenged the ruling.

Three of Arizona’s first four drives in the first half resulted in touchdowns. Fifita’s first touchdown of the game was a 20-yard throw to the back-left corner of the end zone to Spivey, who had four catches for 45 yards and a touchdown. Fifita’s second passing touchdown was a 21-yard throw to third-year wide receiver Brandon Phelps, who emerged in training camp after overcoming a leg injury in the spring. It marked Phelps’ second career touchdown at Arizona.

On the touchdown pass to Phelps, Fifita stepped into the pocket, and instead of running for 10-plus yards and a first down, the Arizona quarterback fired a pass through a window of three NAU defenders in the end zone.

“Noah Fifita is such a good player and he’s so efficient,” Brennan said. “You saw that on the deep ball to Spivey. It was an incredible throw. It’s as good of a throw as you can make. Spivey made a great play, but it was in the perfect place for that. We have incredibly high expectations for Noah, but so does Noah. Nothing he does surprises us. We expect for that high-level of consistency to continue.”

Despite Fifita taking a number of deep shots to wide receivers in training camp, his average depth of target (ADOT) was 6.6 yards and his time to throw (TTT) was 2.73 seconds, according to Pro Football Focus. Last season, Fifita’s ADOT was 10.2 yards, and his TTT was 3.05 seconds. He was also 13 for 16 pass on attempts between 0-9 yards — 6 for 6 on passes behind the line of scrimmage.

Arizona’s offense was a combined 9 for 14 on third- and fourth-down conversions.

“Some people would tell you the only calls that matter are third-down and red-zone calls; everything else is call it how you want,” Brennan said. “We don’t see it that way, but some people view it that way. … When Noah is playing at that level, he gives us a real chance, not just with his ability to make decisions in throwing the football, but also his ability to create with his legs and throw the ball on the run, which makes him a dangerous person on third down.”

Fifita’s performance moved him ahead of Willie Tuitama for the second-most passing yards (9,445) by an Arizona quarterback. Fifita is 567 yards away from passing Nick Foles for Arizona’s all-time passing yards record.

Fifita’s top target was Richardson, who had eight catches on eight targets for a career-high 96 yards. Richardson had 81 yards after catch.

Defensive front rises

Arizona’s defensive front was led by the starting linebacker trio of Taye Brown, Chase Kennedy and Georgetown transfer Cooper Blomstrom.

Brown had 11 tackles and a pass breakup — 10 of his tackles were in the first half. It’s the most tackles for Brown since his 14-tackle performance against BYU last season. Kennedy and Blomstrom combined for 14 tackles, 2.5 sacks and four tackles for loss. Kennedy, who had four sacks all of last season, had a career-high 2.5 sacks on Saturday.

Arizona had five sacks, the most by the Wildcats since the season opener against Hawaii last season, and 11 tackles for loss. Arizona freshman linebacker Dash Fifita — the younger brother of Arizona’s star quarterback — did a spin move at the line of scrimmage and sacked NAU quarterback Ty Pennington for his first sack as a Wildcat.

The different stunts and creative blitzes by Arizona’s linebackers and defensive linemen consistently led to the Wildcats pressuring Pennington. Arizona had 14 quarterback hurries and had 24 total pressures, according to PFF. The Wildcats played 11 defensive linemen and seven linebackers against NAU, which had -7 rushing yards, the fewest rushing yards allowed by Arizona since facing Stanford in 2006.

“It was about execution and our D-Line did a great job forcing quarterback hurries,” said Arizona free safety Quinn Olson. “Our linebackers were all over the field. We just had to make plays in the secondary. It starts up front and they did a good job tonight.”

Added Brennan: “Any time you don’t allow any points from your opponent and you hold them to negative rushing yards, that’s a hell of a day. Plain and simple. … No points, negative rushing yards and under 200 yards passing, that is a hell of a day for a defensive football team.”

Situation at safety

Arizona was charged with 10 missed tackles, but Olson said “part of it is just getting settled into the game,” especially considering the Wildcats don’t do live tackling in practice.

“First time in a while actually live tackling someone,” said Olson, who was charged with two missed tackles on PFF. “As the game went on, we got better at it. It’ll be something we focus on this week.”

In the final minutes of the third quarter, Olson intercepted Pennington near the NAU sideline. Olson was in coverage and “I saw my guy break out and I thought I was in good position, so I just looked back at the quarterback and saw the ball come out and then I sliced underneath and had to hold on to it,” Olson said.

“Stabbing (the football) with the (turnover) sword, that was pretty cool,” Olson said. “Hopefully I can do that a few more times.”

The former walk-on from Iowa grabbed his first interception, which came days after he was named a starter and was placed on a full-ride scholarship.

Olson’s cohort at safety, strong safety Gavin Hunter, was expected to start, but UConn transfer Lee Molette III was inserted into the starting lineup, and Hunter played in the second half. Hunter had four tackles while Molette had a tackle.

“Those guys are going to rotate a little bit and we’re trying to figure that out, what the best thing is,” Brennan said. “Next week, it might be Gavin. It’s day-to-day, week-to-week and the good news is that we have multiple players we feel pretty good putting back there.”

By the numbers

4-17: NAU’s combined third- and fourth-down conversions against Arizona.

7.2: Average yards per play for the Wildcats.

11: Arizona had 11 different pass catchers against NAU.

14: Marshall transfer running back Antwan Roberts’ first rush attempt as a Wildcat was a 14-yard touchdown. Roberts had Arizona’s second fumble in the second half.

136: The Wildcats have outscored their opponents 136-52 in season openers under Brennan.

520: Total yards of offense for Arizona on Saturday — and Tucson’s area code. The Lumberjacks had 193 yards of total offense.

40,129: Announced attendance for the Arizona-NAU game at Casino Del Sol Stadium, the lowest attendance for a home opener since 2021.

They said it

Brennan, on Arizona’s offense stalling to start the second half: “I thought we were moving the ball great in the first half. I thought that was easy to see. Noah was really on. We were running the ball effectively and the physicality of the football team was showing up. Our message at halftime was, ‘Let’s keep our foot on the gas pedal.’ Coming out of halftime, we didn’t get what we wanted, but our defense responded. That’s great team football.”

Reescano, on Arizona having over 200 rushing yards in a game for the first time since the win over Colorado last season: “The O-Line, they’re moving stuff up there.”

Reescano, on picking up blitzes and protecting Fifita in the backfield: “My mindset in that situation is to bury them. Don’t let them touch ‘uno.’ That’s the biggest thing. … No matter what the situation is, protect uno.”

Brennan, on playing in experienced players in the fourth quarter against NAU: “All those players that got to play at the end of the game, those are incredibly valuable reps. They’re live reps, real reps, they’re against an opponent. Shoot, majority of those guys have never played in a game. That part of it is very, very valuable for them to understand what this is and what it takes.”

Brennan, on the upgraded lights and pyrotechnics at Casino Del Sol Stadium: “It was great. That part of it, it adds to the experience for our players and also our fans. The lights, the sound, all of that. I love the idea of Zona Zoo being behind our opponent, let’s go. I thought the atmosphere was great tonight and I’m excited for when we get to come back here in two weeks.”

Availability report

Multiple Wildcats were unavailable on Saturday, including linebacker Max Harris, running back Ismail Mahdi, Oregon transfer defensive back Daylen Austin, Memphis transfer linebacker Everett Roussaw, running back Cornelius Warren III, defensive tackle Ezra Funa and defensive back Dajon Hinton, who suffered a leg injury in the Holiday Bowl last season.

Harris and Mahdi are awaiting their eligibility status after filing for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the NCAA, which could allow them to play for the Wildcats as “five-for-five” players this season.

What’s next

Arizona (1-0) will face 14th-ranked BYU (1-0) for the Big 12 opener at LaVell Edwards Stadium in Provo on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. on Fox. The Wildcats are 12-14-1 in the all-time series against BYU. Arizona has lost five straight games to BYU since beating the Cougars in the 2008 Las Vegas Bowl, including last season’s double-overtime thriller in Tucson.

Arizona lost to BYU, 41-19, in Provo in 2024 during Brennan’s first season at the UA. The Cougars routed Utah Tech, 63-7, on Saturday. The Wildcats open up as 7.5-point underdogs this week, according to FanDuel Sportsbook.

Reescano said the loss to BYU last season “left a sour feeling” with the Wildcats.

“It still gets to a lot of us. Losing that game last year was one of the hardest things we went through as a team, I think,” Reescano said. “Being able to get another opportunity at them, a lot of us have been preparing for this moment.”

Brennan said teams “make the biggest jump from Week 1 to Week 2.”

“This time is going to be a big-time evaluation (period),” Brennan said. “I’m excited to attack the work with our team. … We expected to win (against NAU) and that’s what we did. Now we’re moving on to the next.”