Win Over BYU a Big Step for Arizona
Win Over BYU a Big Step for Arizona
It's easy to overlook a consequential result when so many exciting games happened in D1A over the weekend, but it's important not to miss that Arizona beat BYU 32-22.
Arizona has been taking steps to show their improvement, but those steps were somewhat obscured by the fact they lost those games.
"We lost to Saint Mary's by two and UCLA by three," said Arizona DOR Sean Duffy. "These were games where we felt we had a chance to win. We made some mistakes in those games and so what we needed to do was clean up those mistakes. That's what we did this past weekend. it’s a credit to the boys for continuing to work and work and work; we're making progress."
The Cougars took a 15-5 lead at halftime so Arizona had work to do. It probably should have been more. Twice BYU got over through their forwards right under the posts only to miss the conversions. Yes it was windy but most kickers would expect to make those. Up 10-0 BYU were not in control. Up 14-0 they might have had a bit more of an emotional edge.
Certainly also Arizona was not mistake-free early. An interception in their 22 helped lead to the first BYU try. A prime scoring chance was lost due to lack of support in the ruck.
"One of the goals for us was getting our penalty count down," said Duffy. "There are aggressive penalties and then there are penalties that are not—we’re trying to eliminate those penalties that are controllable."
BYU made their mistakes also. An interception that would have been an easy try was called back for a needless late hit. Finally for the Wildcats, hooker Cameron Blair popped off the back of a maul to score and make it 10-5. BYU did respond. Arizona did well to keep the forwards out, but the Cougars went wide and that made it 15-5.
Arizona came out for a much better second half, outscoring BYU 27-7.
"We made some adjustments, but the boys also listened to those adjustments," said Duffy.
Ted Champion burst through on a flat pass from a lineout and the center then sold a dummy and was over. Freshman wing Nick Morgan came off his wing for a set move following a scrum and flyhalf Saxon Gerstl hit him with a perfect pass. So that made it 17-15 for Arizona. The backs were rolling now and again off set piece, (albeit a stolen lineout) the Wildcats were able to find a player who could break through from long range; this time it was Mattox King. He raced 70 meters to paydirt.
Now it was 22-15 after 10 minutes of the second half.
The key now was to play to win, not play to avoid losing.
"We started to pull away and that was really good to see," said Duffy.
Arizona held BYU in a couple of defensive stands in the Wildcats 22, and when they got into BYU territory, ran another play off set piece, with Morgan taking a pass rom scrumhalf Jacob Hall and powering through.
Matteo Berenger converted to make it 29-15 with six minutes to go. The Cougars swarmed over for a crucial try, but a Berenger penalty finished it off.
So a bit of a road setback for BYU and continued questions about how they can finish games. At the same time, Arizona finally pulled out a victory after some creditable performances that fell just short.
"This is a young team," said Duffy. "We do feel we're taking steps."
