For Arizona, after being down 7-3 after the 1st Qtr, 18-3 at the half and 18-16 after three, for seven plus minutes in the 4th Qtr the Wildcats actually had a one point lead and a chance to increase it. But their missed field goal and the one made by the Red Raiders right afterwards put them back on the wrong end of a 21-19 game with less than three minutes left—still time to retake the lead and win the game. But Arizona’s Junior WR Tetairoa McMillan would fumble an 18 yard pass from their Sophomore QB Noah Fifita and turn the ball over. Three plays later the Red Raiders would be back in the end zone on a Tahj Brooks 32 yard TD run making it 28-19 with less than two minutes left. Arizona Place Kicker Tyler Loop would close the gap with a 52 yard field goal to make it 28-22 with less than a minute to play. But that’s where it would end up as the Wildcat onside kicked was unsuccessful and with just 50 seconds left and Arizona out of timeouts Texas Tech would take a knee twice and run out the clock. At 3-0 in conference and 5-1 overall the Texas Red Raiders currently sit on top of the Big-12 followed by No. 14 BYU, No. 11 Iowa State, and the Colorado Buffaloes. Arizona and Arizona State are at the bottom of the top half.
For Arizona, Noah Fafita connected on 28-of-49 for 301 yards and 2 picks with McMillan collecting over half of those yards on just 8 receptions. On the ground the Wildcats rushed 30 times for 121 yards with Senior RB Quali Conley collecting 80% of those as well as their only rushing TD. Most all of their points came courtesy of their Place Kicker Tyler Loop who connected on 1 PAT and 5-of-6 field goals for 16 of Arizona’s 22 points. For Texas Tech their Junior QB Behren Morton connected on 58% of his passes for 214 yards but never found the end zone. As far as the scoreboard goes Texas Tech was way more productive on the ground, especially Senior RB Tjah Brooks who carried the ball 21 times for 128 yards and all three of their rushing TD’s. It was one of those games where the game stats don’t exactly match up with the result as Arizona led in 1st downs, 25-to-14 and total yards, 422-to-331 in addition to possessing the ball for almost 13 minutes longer.
But as pointed out by the AP in their Recap for ESPN; “Texas Tech got consistent pressure on Arizona quarterback Noah Fafita, forcing him to get rid of the ball quickly or throw it away. The Red Raiders also intercepted two of his passes and forced a turnover on downs deep in their own end while building an 18-3 halftime lead.” As Arizona head coach Brent Brennan said afterwards; “We just didn’t finish the game. We didn’t finish a drive, we missed a field goal to make it six (points) — it’s hard. All those pieces came together so we couldn’t win the game.” This is definitely a game that Arizona could have won but they’ll have to forget about it and hit the road as they take on No. 17 BYU next Saturday at 1:00pm on Fox.