Arizona feeling positive after first win
Kevin Sumlin had to wait a few weeks for his first win as Arizona’s head coach, but his team finally broke through Saturday with a 62-31 win over FCS opponent Southern Utah.
Now Arizona (1-2) can head into conference play this weekend feeling a little bit better about itself than it did leaving Houston in the second week of the season after a 45-18 drubbing by the Cougars.
“Anytime you win it’s always good, right?” Sumlin said.
“Your first win is something you always remember. … For us, we’ve been through a lot in the last couple weeks. So, you can take a deep breath right now and it’s back to work … because we’ve got conference play.”
The star of Arizona’s show is, of course, junior quarterback Khalil Tate, who has looked different this season than the player he was a year ago. No longer is Tate relying just on his feet to make plays. He again showed his dedication to the passing game in the win over Southern Utah by throwing five touchdown passes to tie a career high that he first accomplished last season against Purdue in the Foster Farms Bowl.
Tate has not had many rushing attempts this season and his most productive run through the first three games went for just 12 yards. However, the lack of rushing attempts and rushing yards has not seemed to faze him heading into this week’s game at Oregon State.
“We were one play away like I said last week,” Tate said about the performance of Arizona’s offense in its first win. “If we made one play the results would start to show and it would start to be a better outcome.”
The Wildcats’ offense was able to gain some traction against Southern Utah, but the defense still had its issues. Getting off the field on third down has continued to be a problem for Arizona, and it is one of the main areas of focus this week as the team prepares to take on Oregon State.
“The bottom line is we haven’t hit our goal on third-down conversion rate on defense against our opponents,” Sumlin said. “That’s kept them on the field and allowed them to score points. … That’s something that we’re working hard to shore up.”
