Thinking about Arizona’s loss to BYU and where the program — and season — go from here, the movie Apollo 13 popped into my head.
More specifically, the scene when the problems on the ship first occurred and the flight director Gene Krantz, played by Ed Harris, asked one of his people this question:
“Let’s look at this thing from a … um, from a standpoint of status. What do we got on the spacecraft that’s good?”
Similar to the Apollo 13 mission, which started off with the excited promise of landing on the moon only to have that dream derailed mid-flight, the 2024 season for Arizona is on the verge of a similar fate.
The season started off with great optimism about possibly winning the Big 12 and earning a playoff spot, but now with six games in the books those goals seem all but impossible to achieve.
In the movie (as was the case in real life), once the initial mission of landing on the moon was given up on the team pivoted to a singular goal of getting the astronauts home safely.
Spoiler alert: They did exactly that.
Technically Arizona’s original goals are still within reach, but at 3-3 (1-2 Big 12) the goal now is less about winning championships than it is about, well, finishing the season strong. Tucson’s team may have a problem, but let’s look at this season from a standpoint of status and ask ourselves a simple, important question.
What do we got on the football team that’s good?
Turns out, enough to feel like better days are ahead.
First, let’s give Arizona’s record some context. Two of the three losses occurred on the road, and all three are to teams with a combined record of 16-2. One of Arizona’s wins came on the road against a then top-10 team, and although there don’t appear to be any gimmes on the schedule going forward at least in terms of record things do soften up a bit, with four of the final six matchups coming at home.
Granted having the easiest schedule in the country would not matter if the Wildcats were short on talent, but while there are certainly questions about some players and positions overall the team has more than enough impact players to win some games.
Defensively, the Cats have been more than fine. Injuries may start to take a toll as the team is missing the bulk of its experienced secondary, but that side of the ball has done enough to keep the team in games when the offense has struggled to put points on the board.
Now, could the defense have done better in certain situations, like at the end of the first half and fourth quarter of the Texas Tech game? Absolutely.
Could Tacario Davis had held onto the ball that hit him in the hands against BYU and come up with a potentially game-changing interception? No doubt.
There are of course missed tackles, blown assignments and other plays that could have made a difference, but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who looks at the defense as a reason for why expectations have thus far not been met.
So in other words Arizona has a good (enough) defense, especially with guys like Davis, Jacob Manu, Taye Brown, Dalton Johnson, Tre Smith and Genesis Smith on the field.
Tyler Loop and special teams haven’t been the issue, either. Sure Arizona’s kicker hasn’t been perfect and his lone miss against Texas Tech was kind of a big one, but to expect more than he’s provided would be silly and unfair.
Loop and Arizona lead the conference in made field goals with the former’s percentage being fourth-best on what adds up to being the most attempts.
Loop is a weapon and the punting and return games have not been issues.
You’ll take that for sure.
Which brings us to the offense, which has appeared to take a giant step back from what we saw as recently as last season and hasn’t come close to being as effective as we thought it would be in this one.
Not that we haven’t seen glimpses of their potential.
In fact, the aspect of this rough start that is arguably most frustrating is how close the team has appeared to figuring things out. The New Mexico game appears to be an outlier, but the first offensive drives against Kansas State and BYU were things of beauty and the team
Despite being second-to-last in the conference in average points scored per game, Arizona ranks eighth in both average yards per play and yards per game.
Moving the ball has not been a problem. Finishing drives, on the other hand, is.
“I think that has more to do with that space that we’re struggling in, the plus-30 and going in,” Brennan said Monday. “We only punted once in that game (at BYU), we had 25 first downs.
“There was good production there offensively. The thing that, we as a staff are working, on is what are we going to do, what is our best stuff when we get to that spot on the field.”
Arizona Daily Star reporter Justin Spears noted that since the first game of the season, when the Cats lit up New Mexico, Arizona has scored touchdowns just 27 percent of the time when it crosses midfield. Understanding nobody punches it in every time they enter opposing territory, that number is disgustingly bad.
Thirty drives over five games. Eight touchdowns, 12 field goals, four interceptions and four turnovers on downs. Two missed field goals as well.
Yuck.
Now, it would be a different story if Arizona was incapable of doing anything offensively, as was the case back in ‘21 and in other seasons where the offense was just bad. After all, if you can’t consistently move the ball points will most definitely be hard to come by. But while it’s possible this year’s team lacks what it needs to be effective in the red zone (or close to it), getting there is an important step.
Given what we know of Noah Fifita, Tetairoa McMillan, Keyan Burnett and the rest of the offense, do we really think they are incapable of figuring things out?
Do we believe a coaching staff that we felt pretty good about going into the season actually has no idea what it’s doing and can’t adjust to better match its talent?
There are absolutely questions about this team, especially now that we have seen it play six mostly uninspiring games.
But while the season’s first six games have not gone the way we expected, it certainly could be worse. And when it comes to worse, we have all seen what that looks like.
This Arizona team, for all its struggles, isn’t that.
And that’s good.
