Cats Stats: Scoreless halves reveal problems that Arizona offense must solve

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long to find another half of football in which the Wildcats failed to dent the scoreboard.

It happened during this calendar year, in the season-ending Holiday Bowl. Arizona was shut out in the first half against SMU.

That makes two scoreless halves out of the past four against FBS opponents — not exactly what the UA offense is striving for.

It could be deemed a fool’s errand to compare anything that’s occurring this season to what occurred last season when a large percentage of Arizona’s players are new. But the Wildcats have the same offensive coordinator (Seth Doege), the same quarterback (Noah Fifita) and many of the same supporting characters on that side of the ball.

And there are most definitely common threads between those two halves.

The research team at “Cats Stats” went through the play-by-play logs for both contests ahead of Arizona’s home game against Northern Illinois on Saturday night. We discovered that the problems the Wildcats faced against SMU were largely the same as the ones they encountered at BYU.

In both scoreless halves, Arizona had issues along the offensive line; committed too many penalties; and faced too many third-and-long situations.

That’s a formula for failure.

Miscues vs. Mustangs

Let’s start with the Jan. 2 Holiday Bowl. Arizona trailed 24-0 at the half, made a game of it after the break and eventually lost 24-19.

The O-line problems popped up quickly. On Arizona’s fourth play from scrimmage, left tackle Ty Buchanan suffered a game-ending injury. That nudged Rhino Tapa’atoutai into the lineup and meant that the Wildcats would play the rest of the game without both starting tackles; Matthew Lado already was starting for the injured Tristan Bounds on the other side.

It took a while for the line to get settled. Fifita was sacked only once thanks to his elite escapability, but miscues proved costly in a handful of situations.

In all, Arizona was penalized four times for 45 yards in the first half, with three of those against the offense. An additional holding penalty was declined.

Because of penalties and other breakdowns, the Wildcats often found themselves “behind the chains” — i.e., facing long-yardage situations. Their average to go on third down in the first half was 8.0 yards. They converted only 1 of 5 third-down opportunities.

The second half started similarly: A false start turned a third-and-1 into a third-and-6, and Arizona ended up turning the ball over on downs. The Wildcats played cleaner, better football the rest of the way — committing only one more penalty.

All told, Arizona converted 7 of 11 third downs in the second half. Not surprisingly, the Wildcats’ average to gain was lower after halftime — 5.6 yards. They faced three third-and-10s but also had four third-and-5s and two third-and-1s.

Blunders vs. BYU

The BYU game was a mirror image of the Holiday Bowl. The first half was clean and crisp; the second half sloppy and disjointed.

And the third-down disparity was even more pronounced.

Arizona killed it on third down in the first half in Provo. The Wildcats converted 4 of 7 opportunities. Their average to gain was a mere 4.4 yards.

In the second half, Arizona converted just 1 of 5 third downs. The average to gain after halftime more than tripled to 13.8 yards.

It’s no coincidence that the Wildcats also more than doubled their penalties in the second half, going from two to five. Those infractions put them in challenging situations time and again.

One first-half sequence foreshadowed what was to come. Lado was flagged for holding in the first quarter, turning a Kedrick Reescano first-down run into a second-and-15. After a 7-yard Reescano run, Arizona faced third-and-8. That was the play where BYU blitzed and intercepted Fifita.

In the second half, a hold on Tapa’atoutai created a second-and-20, which led to a punt. Arizona converted a second-and-21 after Tapa’atoutai was flagged for a facemask foul, but a false start later in the drive led to another punt.

(The end result of that drive could have been a field goal if Brent Brennan had chosen to go that route. He bypassed another field goal later. But that’s another story for another time.)

On the Wildcats’ penultimate possession, a false start created a second-and-15. Arizona gained 3 yards and converted on third-and-12 on Fifita’s scrambling 34-yard strike to tight end Cole Rusk. The Wildcats couldn’t convert on fourth-and-4, however, turning the ball over on downs.

Any lingering hope ended when Fifita was sacked on consecutive plays to start the next offensive series — creating an untenable third-and-24.

UA offensive coordinator Seth Doege, born and raised in Texas, had a unique way of summarizing what transpired.

“We go out there in the second half and just have these self-inflicted sins — these penalties that put us behind, get us off track,” Doege said.

“You're sitting there trying to battle second-and-20, first-and-25. Well, that's not easy to convert. ...

“There's stuff that happened in the second half that obviously you're not proud of. It just seems like we weren't very efficient.

“I felt like we hurt ourselves in the second half, just having too many penalties, couldn't get out of our own way.”

None of this was unexpected given the circumstances. Left-side starters Lado and Tapa’atoutai are still relatively inexperienced, BYU has a loaded defensive front and LaVell Edwards Stadium is a difficult place to play.

The goal moving forward is to minimize those mistakes and put the offense in more manageable situations.

Third-and-long isn’t where you want to be. Even with Fifita behind center, it’s a tough slog. No offense will thrive in that scenario.