BYU Football: Scouting the Schedule – Arizona
By Shaun Gordon
This is the first of a weekly series leading up to the start of the BYU Football season. Each week (twice this week) we’ll break down one of BYU’s opponents in order.
There are just under twelve weeks left until BYU Football is finally back.
It’s twelve weeks of barren sportsland, with no football, basketball, or college sports in general taking place.
So lets take this time to look forward to the football season. More specifically, let’s take a look at each team the Cougars will face in 2018.
Twelve opponents in just under twelve weeks.
Let’s start with Arizona.
Last Season
The Wildcats entered the season with Head Coach Rich Rodriguez on the hot seat. Arizona went 3-9 in 206, and he’d only managed to win more than eight games once in his five years in the desert.
The media picked the Wildcats to finish last in the PAC-12 South and show little to no improvement from 2016.
Instead, Arizona took advantage of a relatively soft schedule to finish the regular season at 7-5, with a third place finish in the PAC-12 South at 5-4 in conference play. They fell to Purdue 38-35 in a Foster Farms Bowl thriller.
Part of their jump in wins came thanks to a pretty weak schedule. Their five losses all came against teams that finished above .500, but they only beat one FBS team that finished with a winning record (Washington State).
The Wildcats hit their stride five games into the season when Khalil Tate took over under center. The sophomore quarterback averaged nearly 300 yards of total offense, and he’ll enter 2018 as one of the best dual-threat quarterbacks in the country.
Offseason
The four-win improvement wasn’t enough for Rodriguez to keep his job. When Texas A&M parted ways with Kevin Sumlin, the Wildcats jumped at the opportunity to bring him in, letting Rodriguez go.
Sumlin kept Arizona’s Defensive Coordinator, Marcel Yates, in the same position, but he brought Noel Mazzone with him from Texas A&M as the Offensive Coordinator.
While the defensive schemes should remain similar, the Wildcats will roll out a completely new offensive scheme, and their first chance to implement it will come against BYU.