Bear Down Wildcats

Even without the not running for yards, he still would seem to fixate on one guy when pressured and forget about everyone else, at least last game. He was ignoring wide open guys to try and hit tight windows while scrambling around. Probably just needs to work on his read progression.

I also wanna emphasize I have no real issue with him, just a little constructive criticism on a couple things he could improve. Other than that I'm very happy with the upgrade at QB.

Fishclamps wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 4:15 pm Even without the not running for yards, he still would seem to fixate on one guy when pressured and forget about everyone else, at least last game. He was ignoring wide open guys to try and hit tight windows while scrambling around. Probably just needs to work on his read progression.

I also wanna emphasize I have no real issue with him, just a little constructive criticism on a couple things he could improve. Other than that I'm very happy with the upgrade at QB.

A team like MSST exposed his inexperience and I think that's all it was. He also showed us some of his great abilities. It will get better

I don’t think I’ve seen a guy make such significant changes in one week.
He ran when needed.
He didn’t seem to force throws.
When he got flushed he he kept his eyes forward. Last week he would turn his back to the LOS too often when he was scrambling.

I can't say how excited I was when he ran for the first time in the game. It makes our offense run so much smoother as soon as he becomes a threat.

Hey we're 2-1!

Cal is beatable and Colorado is absolutely awful. So we have a chance to be 4-1 in 2 weeks

Dare to dream.

After Colorado though we have a 4 game stretch against Oregon Washington USC and Utah who all may be ranked. So us going to a bowl will require us beatng ASU, beating Cal on the road, and having some kind of upset

ASUHATER! wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 6:28 am After Colorado though we have a 4 game stretch against Oregon Washington USC and Utah who all may be ranked. So us going to a bowl will require us beatng ASU, beating Cal on the road, and having some kind of upset

We have an outside shot (perhaps long) at 6 wins:

at Cal
Colorado
At UCLA (they look very beatable)
asu

Personally, if Fisch manages two more wins (with one being against the scum) it will have been a very successful season.

PAC-12 is weird and dumb.

Heres' hoping Speedy Luke is healthy. looks like hes acclimated to the speed of college ball and ready to make some big strides. If hes good to go against Colorado hes going to pop a few.

I'm not going to hedge my enjoyment on this team bowling or not but its absolutely out there to be had. And BTW, that NDSU team last night and Mississippi State were effectively ranked sides. I'd be curious if anyone in the PAC is that sound at the line of scrimmage.

Damn proud of Jayden. I LOVE the way he plays. Kid is an absolute whirling dervish. A wildcat, even. Weird throwing delivery but hes got some real sizzle on his arm and he never quits. The more he and our wideouts play catch, the better this team will be. Those deep balls to Tetairoa and Jacob will start to connect.

Dorian is a Twin Cities kid, and thats where a bunch of NDSU skill guys are from. I suspect thats where a ton of that huffing at the sideline came from.

The other T Mac, Tanner, what a stud. Its so refreshing to have a TE who gets the ball.

Our defense still looked small against NDSU but I attribute that to youth and depth. I can't emphasize enough how much Rich Rods stupid defensive scheme and carnival barking gimmicks wore on me, even if the Cats made the Dads Root Beer Bowl. Dion and Paris are going to keep growing and improving. Proud of how they stood tall last night. Kyon and big Jalen are Sunday boyz. Smallest D lineman clocking in in the 280s instead of the largest being 245 is not nothing.

I love the transfer portal. (Fwiw, I also want ZERO guardrails on NIL. What makes college ball special is the anarchy and goofy local charm of it). Hunter Echols gets to be the face of a program instead of languishing on the punt team his senior season. You can tell what it means to him. I'm thrilled hes here. He, Christian, Jaxen, and CRW are playmakers too.

Tetairoa loves to block. He very much looks like a freshman physically, but give this kid some weight room time and hes going to be a springier version of Drake London. LOVE his game. He caught that ball in the first half btw. That was some PAC-12 ref nonsense...

One concern I have: Wideout depth. I'd like to see Jamarye and Simpson play a little more in the base offense just to get some reps. And- Jamarye was a player. I think there will be some points this year and hopefully next where he steps up in a major way.

With having Cal, Colorado, UCLA and ASU left on the schedule I can definitely see 2 more wins. Any more than that will be a huge success

Team is certainly trending in the right direction

I expect an even bigger jump next year

If we can just find a way to beef up both our O and D lines we can be dangerous

Fisch still needs to stop the head scratching plays though. Pretty sure every team knows that if Joyner comes in to replace JdL for one play, the Wildcat is coming up.

Also going for it on 4th down deep in your own territory in the first half has to be about the worst idea in college football yesterday. That sack and fumble recovery saved the day, when the Bison were driving to score a TD.

My rankings:

1. Utah
2. USC
3. Washington
4. Oregon

5. Oregon State
6. Washington State

The next group is mostly untested. And in a few weeks this group we should know a lot more

7. UCLA - Horrible scheduling. They haven't played anyone yet.
8. Arizona - Definitely upward trending. Their ceiling this year is 5th place. My hunch is they will end up 7th or 8th in conference.
9. Stanford - They lost to USC, expected. So they are hard to place.

The bottom group

10: California - They played well against a bad Notre Dame team. Next week's game at home against UA will tell a lot about both teams.
11. Arizona State - Almost last, falling fast.
12. Colorado - Last years Arizona team could beat this team. That says a lot on how bad they are.

Merkin wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 8:49 am Pretty sure every team knows that if Joyner comes in to replace JdL for one play, the Wildcat is coming up.

That's true, and I've also been frustrated by our lack of success with it. But, another way to look at it is that it's now set up for Joyner to throw out of it, and he was a QB at Tucson Cienega.

So most of your opponents coming up will be typical pac 12 spread out and throw?

is there anyone similar to physical NDSU?

Good luck rest of season

All the top teams in the Pac that we face will be physical (Oregon, USC, Utah). The difference is those teams are both physical and athletic, especially at the skill positions. Therefore, the prep is night and day compared to NDSU.

Don't take this as a slight, but like our coach said preparing for NDSU is different than anyone on your schedule. He made the analogy to playing the service academy schools.

Arizona will not face a NDSU type team again unless it's in the post season but that's not even a given.

Wow this guy is STILL here trolling?!

You're officially more pathetic than ASU fans. Congrats.

That's it; I demand a tax refund for farm subsidies.

damnit

Whoa, that didn’t look like a bad injury when he went down. Hope it wasn’t his Achilles

And the toughest part of our schedule is still ahead of us.....Yikes.

In hindsight maybe we should have seen the defensive issues coming. We lost Trevon Mason, our best DL. We lost DE JB Brown preseason to injury........and lost 3 LB's (Pandy, Hayward, and Hebert). We just don't have the depth to replace then. Its going to take a couple of more years to dig out from under the RRod/Sumlin recruiting disasters. They not only left the gas tank empty, they left holes in the gas tank.

PFF scores for the Cal game. 4 defensive players graded below 50

The Arizona Wildcats played 74 offensive snaps and 70 defensive snaps in Saturday’s 49-31 loss to Cal. Here is how much each player played along with their Pro Football Focus grade.

Offense
C Josh Baker, 74 (63.5)
QB Jayden de Laura, 74 (90.0)
LT Jordan Morgan, 74 (68.6)
RT Paiton Fears, 74 (53.8)
RG Jonah Savaiinaea, 51.9 (57.3)
WR Dorian Singer, 70 (63.8)
WR Jacob Cowing, 68 (80.1)
WR Tetairoa McMillan, 68 (66.7)
TE Tanner McLachlan, 57 (78.0)
LG Josh Donovan, 57 (59.6)
RB Michael Wiley, 45 (69.3)
TE Alex Lines, 26 (44.6)
RB Jonah Coleman, 22 (72.8)
RG Sam Langi, 17 (60.6)
RB D.J. Williams, 9 (78.1)
WR Anthony Simpson, 5 (56.0)
Defense
SS Christian Young, 70 (55.3)
CB Christian Roland-Wallace, 68.7 (68.9)
LB Jerry Roberts, 69 (59.4)
DL Jalen Harris, 69 (55.2)
LB Kolbe Cage, 68 (47.1)
DL Hunter Echols, 65 (62.1)
S Isaiah Taylor, 49 (68.5)
DL Kyon Barrs, 47 (73.5)
CB Gunner Maldonado, 41 (55.8)
DT Paris Shand, 39 (67.1)
CB Treydan Stukes, 36 (56.3)
CB Isaiah Rutherford, 34 (49.3)
DT Taioalii Savea, 32 (63.)
LB Jacob Manu, 31 (52.5)
DL Dion Wilson Jr., 25 (49.3)
S Jaxen Turner, 22 (64.5)
DE Russell Davis, 2 (60.1)
DE Jeremy Mercier, 1 (39.5)
PFF Player Grading Scale:

100-90 Elite

89-85 Pro Bowler

84-70 Starter

69-60 Backup

59-0 Replaceable

Was wondering why JDL's PFF was so high with his TOs. Looking at the criteria,:

Grades
PFF grades every NFL player on every play on a scale of -2 to +2 using half point increments.[8] The grades are based on context and performance. A four-yard run that gains a first down after two broken tackles will receive a better grade than a four-yard run on 3rd and 5, where the ball carrier does nothing more than expected. A quarterback who makes a good pass that a receiver tips into the arms of a defender will not negatively affect the quarterback's grade on that play, despite the overall negative result for the team.[citation needed]


JDL's picks were all on him.

Oregon might run for 600 yards against us.

We are about to play 5 ranked teams in a row

We all should keep things in perspective during this stretch. We are clearly building something here. Winning even 1 of these games would be shocking. Next year is when I believe we can actually put a scare into the top tier of the league

AL, I’m with you 100%.

But I will say if we get a situation where we play our A game on offense and the other team is just so-so for that game we have a shot to upset.

Winning 1 of the next 5 would be huge. And it could be 6 ranked teams in a row since WSU is 4-1. We go 2-4 in the next 6 and we'll know we're on the right track. But we can easily be 3-8 7 weeks from now

EastCoastCat wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 6:41 am AL, I’m with you 100%.

But I will say if we get a situation where we play our A game on offense and the other team is just so-so for that game we have a shot to upset.

Totally agree...and an upset during this stretch is certainly not out of the question. I do think we have the offense to play with some of these teams... it's the other side of the ball that would have to play out of their minds and force multiple turnovers.

Alieberman wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 6:08 am We are about to play 5 ranked teams in a row

We all should keep things in perspective during this stretch. We are clearly building something here. Winning even 1 of these games would be shocking. Next year is when I believe we can actually put a scare into the top tier of the league

In Perspective?? On this board??

I predict that in 7 weeks we will be seeing the following phrases on this board:

"Jedd Lasso"
"AZ football sucks"
"FireFisch"
"If we had only called different plays we would have won" (after losing by 5 touchdowns)
"When does basketball start?"

which game in next 5 is an upset special for Zona?

I'd assume Oregon at home next week or at UCLA

Oregon has a history of struggling in the state of Arizona under previous coaches.

I think ICLA’s strength running) is our weakness but we should score on them.

Singer really benefiting (obviously) from the attention given Cowing and T-Mac. And Cowing is just that good.

Sure helps that our QB is fantastic.

Loving this team. There is some real skill on the field. Dorian, Cowing, and Tetairoa are as good as any triumvirate in college football. Tanner is a huge find. Keyan Burnett, AJ Jones and Kevin Green Jr are going to play more and more this season. Fun and encouraging to see how many freshman are contributing. Russell Davis, Ta'ita'i, Manu all played and helped last night. Jason Harris got some run last week. Those are guys we will need the rest of the way to give Jalen, Paris, Kyon & Dion some air. Would love to see Sterling Lane prove himself while we are at it.

Isaiah Taylor and Anthony Simpson were Fischs' first two true recruits the previous class. I wonder if Isaiah pushes Turner or Maldonado out of the starting 11- I really like what he is doing.

I think the undoing against the next 5 teams will be depth along the front 7 on defense. One one hand, I like our starters and the young pups playing is encouraging. One thing that I noticed is Cal played about 20 more guys during our game than the Cats did. Thats really going to show on defense and special teams (we have a lot of 1s playing on special teams right now).

The one thing I don't love is Jedds use of, and the play out of, timeouts. That might be similar to some of the callouses that Tetairoa, Manu, Kolbe Cage, and the rest of our young guns are developing. It will pay off down the line.

As an aside, I really admire how Gunner Cruz, Jordan McCloud, and Will Plummer have handled this season. For Gunner in particular it can't be easy to deal with the guy who beat you out at your previous school following you here and doing it again. Its refreshing to see all three of those guys contributing to play calls, coaching teammates up on the sideline, and keeping Jayden loose (not that he needs help there). I'm really glad those guys, Drake Anderson, Stevie Rocker, Jamarye, etc are in Tucson.

Be patient with the young pups over the next month. We will no doubt be on the wrong side of games, but there will be some little wins and big wins before we come out the other side against Tempe Tech. Eyeball test wise, this team has FAR surpassed my wildest expectations.

My only concern hitting this tough stretch is coming away without too many injuries especially both lines.

We are a little deeper than previous years but not that deep.

Someone else will need to do the next two game threads. I'll be out of town.

azgreg wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:27 pm Someone else will need to do the next two game threads. I'll be out of town.

Whatever happened to PoM? Place ain't the same without him, Chi, and Longhorned.

Is Fisch the new Mike Leach?

I’m having a deja vu…

UAEebs86 wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:30 pm

azgreg wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:27 pm Someone else will need to do the next two game threads. I'll be out of town.

Whatever happened to PoM? Place ain't the same without him, Chi, and Longhorned.

Yea it sucks. I know longhorned usually bounced in and out but chi has been one of the few consistent faces on all iterations of this board for 20 years and now he just dropped off the face of the earth 3 months ago. Too bad.

I thought we had a good chance to win 3 games this year. I think we have a possibility to win 4. Just don't want to be run out of any games and that will show progress.
Impressions:
1 Offense is much better than I expected
2. Turn around in red zone is unbelievable
3. Although I knew Cowing would be good. He might be close to the best receiver in Arizona history if he continues close to this pace.
4. Love Singer and especially his story as starting as a walk-on. Inspirational to others.
5. Defense is weak....very weak
6. Thought over D-Line was going to be MUCH better at controlling the run (disappointed)
7. Not convinced our secondary is holding up well.
8. Winning 3-4 games will show progress to potential recruit but less than 6 next year and the fountain will dry up.

Hopeful for one break through game in the next 6. Keep them close and it will keep us invested. Get blown out 3-4 times and we are back to wondering.

ASUHATER! wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 7:48 am I'd assume Oregon at home next week or at UCLA

as an outsider I'd say oregon.

scumdevils86 wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 3:54 pm

UAEebs86 wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:30 pm

azgreg wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:27 pm Someone else will need to do the next two game threads. I'll be out of town.

Whatever happened to PoM? Place ain't the same without him, Chi, and Longhorned.

Yea it sucks. I know longhorned usually bounced in and out but chi has been one of the few consistent faces on all iterations of this board for 20 years and now he just dropped off the face of the earth 3 months ago. Too bad.

Chicat hasn't been posting on FB either, although Femcat has. Although he never really posted that much. Maybe he is taking an internet vacation like Longhorned has done. That is the end of the Chicago contingent. UAStacy among others.

Catgrad97 showed up on FB. Now in Florida and survived Ian.