The 2026 season for Arizona football is officially underway and it is off to a good start with a 35-7 win over in-state foe NAU. The Wildcats handled business for most of the game, aside from a few mistakes, to move to 1-0 on the season. All eyes now turn to the trip to Provo for a big time matchup against BYU.
Here are the grades for the offense, defense, special teams, and coaching from the win over the Lumberjacks:
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Offense: A
Arizona could not have asked for a better start to the season. Noah Fifita threw his first touchdown to Tre Spivey from 20 yards out on an opening drive that looked very easy.
The second drive was stopped after NAU forced a fumble on Giovanni Richardson after a catch and run in the open field. However, the third drive was as successful as the first with Fifita marching the offense down the field and finding Brandon Phelps from 21 yards out.
Kedrick Reescano punched it in on the fourth drive of the game for the first rushing touchdown of the season. By halftime, Fifita hit the 200 yard passing mark and the offense as a whole put up just under 300 total yards.
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The first score of the second half came from Antwan Roberts Jr. who showed major quickness for a 14 yard touchdown. This came after three straight passes from Fifita to Richardson.
Reescano got his second touchdown of the game in the fourth quarter. Following that drive, Fifita’s night was done and in came Sawyer Anderson. Unfortunately, his first pass of the game was taken out of the air and returned for a pick-six.
Roberts Jr. had another nice run for 19 yards but fumbled the ball and NAU scooped it up for the third turnover of the game.
Arizona finished with 520 total yards with 314 through the air and 206 on the ground. The offense went 7-12 on third down and 2-2 on fourth down.
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Fifita finished the game 22-29 for 262 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for 24 yards on five carries. Reescano finished as the leading rusher with 48 yards on 10 carries for two touchdowns. Richardson finished with eight catches for 98 yards.
Defense: A
The Wildcats’ defense pitched a first half shutout, but struggled to finish some of their tackles. This is to be expected in the first game of the season, and Arizona did clean it up as the game progressed.
Two sacks from Chase Kennedy and the first career sack for freshman Dash Fifita highlighted the first half. NAU finally put itself in range for a field goal but it missed it wide right from 34 yards out. Taye Brown hit double digit tackles in the first half with 10. The next closest player had four tackles.
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Zac Siulepa started the second half strong for the defense by drawing a holding penalty and deflecting a pass to force a three and out. Kevin Moorer Jr. joined the sack party as well. The first turnover of the season went to Quinn Olson who picked off Ty Pennington.
As a whole, the defense kept NAU under 200 total yards, mainly due to the fact that it finished with -7 rushing yards. Brown finished the game with 11 tackles, while Cooper Blomstrom finished with eight.
The Wildcats held the Lumberjacks to 4-14 on third down and 0-3 on third down. They will need a similar type of performance if it hopes to pull off the upset next week.
Special Teams: A-
The only knock in the first half for special teams was that freshman Ian French had a kickoff that landed out of bounds. All other kicks were touchbacks.
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Chase Ridley gots some reps in the second half with the offense stalling on a couple of drives. He had punts of 50, 45, and 49 yards. Michael Salgado-Medina went 5-5 on his PATs. Arizona did not have any kickoff or punt returns.
Coaching: A
All in all, Arizona did what it was supposed to do. Brent Brennan had his players prepared, and the Wildcats did not play with their food (too much).
Yes, there is some stuff to clean up, but that’s to be expected after week one. Danny Gonzales‘ defense technically pitched a shutout, as the only way NAU scored was on defense. What it did not do was tackle well.
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Arizona made plays when it needed to on defense, but pass defense did not look particularly sharp at certain points. Much of that is credited to Pennington’s play. You can only take so much from a blowout win in week one against NAU, next week will tell a lot about where the defense is.
For the offense, as long as Fifita is dishing it out like he did tonight, it will be fine. It got very vanilla in the second half, so expect more to be shown next week against the Cougars.
A nice surprise was Roberts Jr.. He showed flashes of possibly being the speed back if Ismail Mahdi does not play this season.
The Wildcats played with the energy they needed to, left the game healthy, and most importantly walked away with a win. The biggest jumps in team improvements are made between week one and week two. Arizona will need to make a very large jump to contend with BYU.
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