Arizona Wildcats 4-2 Overall (2-1 Conference)

This Week’s Score: Arizona 43 – Stanford 38

Next Week’s Opponent: UCLA

Enough offense for you?

Despite giving up over 30 points for the third straight game, Saturday’s shootout victory over Stanford shot Arizona into the BCS top 25 (#22). With quality in-conference wins over Stanford and Oregon State as well as only two losses (the heart breaker in Washington and to undefeated Iowa), the respect seems justified. Speaking of that Iowa game, how badly do you want to see a do-over with Nick Foles as the starter?

Since Foles has taken over as the starter, the Wildcats have scored 113 points and have amassed 1402 yards of total
offense; good for 37.7 points and 467.33 yards per game.

Hard to find anything about the offense not to love in Saturday’s game. Nick Foles had an unbelievable day, throwing for 415 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. Juron Criner had 12 catches for 152 yards, Terrell Turner had nine catches for 101 yards and a touchdown, and David Douglas had 92 yards and two touchdowns on seven catches. David Roberts and Keola Antolin both snagged five catches each as well.

Arizona didn’t run often, but when they did, good things happened. Greg Nwoko rushed three times for 45 yards, capped off by a 43-yard touchdown run in the 4th quarter, and Nic Grigsby rushed seven times for 89 yards, also capped off by a huge (57-yard) touchdown in the 4th.

On defense, things were quite different. The defense gave up a miserable 584 total yards, including 434 passing yards. They also gave up 123 yards and two touchdowns to Gerhart on the ground before his injury. Bright spots include getting the stop on 4th and 1 late in the game (you have to be thrilled as a Wildcats fan that Gerhart wasn’t available), and of course the 79-yard pick-6 by Robert Golden to put Arizona on the board early in the 1st quarter.

But for a team that can usually rely on its speedy defense, this is the second time in three games that they’ve been torched for over 400 total yards (407 against Oregon State). Yes, they ended up winning both of those games; but the difference between a good season and a fantastic one will be the defense, because the offense is clearly clicking.

The Wildcats will look to keep the good times rolling this week at home against UCLA.