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Arizona Pulls Away in Second Half to Beat Northern Arizona 38-3
Jayden de Laura accounted for four touchdowns Tacario Davis returned a blocked field goal 85 yards for a score and Arizona opened the season a 38-3 win over Northern Arizona on Saturday night.
Arizona (1-0) lost to the FCS Lumberjacks (0-1) at home two years ago at the start of coach Jedd Fisch's desert rebuild. The Wildcats had a hard time getting out of their own way in the first half of the rematch before rolling over Northern Arizona in the second.
Sparked by Davis' return, Arizona turned an 11-point halftime lead to 32 by the end of the third quarter. De Laura punctuated the outburst with a 53-yard TD run, nearly losing his balance before racing up the sideline.
De Laura threw for 285 yards and three touchdowns with an interception in the end zone in the fourth quarter.....
Read the full story below
https://arizonawildcats.com/news/2023/9/2/football-arizona-pulls-away-in-second-half-to-beat-northern-arizona-38-3.aspx
Box score
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Watch player interviews and highlights
https://twitter.com/ArizonaFBall/status/1698220797977076032
Overall, great game by the Cats.
There were a few sloppy moments. Specifically, DeLaura showed that he will still throw the ball up from grab when scrambling (which can't happen in big games).
Props to NAU for sucking serious time off the clock. They wanted a low scoring game and they possessed the ball for a while. Unfortunately, a couple BS calls assisted their time of possession. We should have earned a 5 yard "running into the kicker" penalty when we incidentally hit the non kicking foot. BS call that eventually gave NAU their only 3 points. Losing Maldonado was properly called but it's absurd that Cowing was hit with the crown of the helmet and the Lumberjack's best defender stayed in the gsme...
Our front 7 on D is ridiculously good. They will only get better. Our O-line also did a god job, although our opponent was undersized up front so Week 3 will be a better test of how we play in the trenches.
Bear Down!
https://twitter.com/MichaelJLev/status/1698383178879390153
I was embarrassed by "JDL" last night. Terrible QBR. PFF is not indicative of anything that "2 eyes and 2 ears" can see/hear from themselves. JDL just isn't "Him".
Nothing came easy vs NAU. The final score was a complete farce. A solid 3rd Quarter. Great.
The Defense held down a team that didn't belong, but thought they did for the first half because they played with pride knowing they destroyed us before.
This should have been a 66-3 beatdown with zero resistance.
Brother Jedd didn't have this team ready last night and I am not expecting much better going forward. That was about as good as this team could possibly play in my opinion. The defense can't play any better. The Offense doesn't appear to be capable of doing much more either.
So it will come down to Coaching/Play Calling from here since JDL cannot be trusted to make the right reads.
Outside of two bad passes (one pick and one incomplete, JDL played a great game.
Besides the crappy kicker call, this was a well-played game by the Cats and the scored was indicative of the performance.
The goal during a rebuild is "improvement" and this team has drastically improved.
The talent and size upgrade on defense stuck out to me.
Overall I was expecting AZ to dominate on offense more but they were hampered by mistakes and penalties.
I am hoping to chalk it up to first game jitters that can be ironed out but it makes me nervous for future success.
The UArizona defense gave up 264 yards vs. NAU, 22 yards more than the loss to the Lumberjack 2 years ago.
UArizona also held NAU to just 3 points in 2004. Arizona finished that 2004 season with just 3 wins.