What Brent Brennan, Noah Fifita and Treydan Stukes said after Arizona’s loss at Iowa State

Iowa State’s physicality, maturity, and whiteout seemed to be too much for Arizona in the 39-14 loss in Ames. In the first loss of the season, the Wildcats showed that there is a lot to improve upon.

Here is what head coach Brent Brennan, Noah Fifita, and Treydan Stukes had to say following the loss:

Brennan on the loss: “Going into the game you guys heard me talk about this game being a measuring stick for us. I own that reference, and tonight was a harsh measuring stick. I think there were moments where we showed toughness and made some plays, but it wasn’t nearly enough. I think the harsh reality of losing a game like that, when we don’t execute on the level that we need to against a top 12, 14 opponent in their stadium, you’re not going to feel great about the result. I look at it, I think this is something that we have to learn from, and I have to learn from it, and we have to regroup and learn from what we did well, what we didn’t do well, and really attack that collectively. I think because there were opportunities in all three phases that we did not take advantage of, and that’s redline accountability. I tip my hat to those guys. Coach Campbell, Iowa State, have a very good football team, and they did a great job tonight. For us, moving forward, I’m looking forward to getting to work tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to seeing how our team attacks the process of getting things fixed. It didn’t go well tonight, and that starts with me. So we’ve got a lot of work to do. We have a lot of football left to play. I love this team. I’m excited about this team, but tonight wasn’t good enough.”

On the first quarter mistakes: “Well, I think you missed a field goal. Those are momentum plays, you know what I mean? We put together a nice drive there coming out and coming off the kickoff return. So you know that part of it is disappointing, because we believe in Michael, and he’s a young player but he needs to make that kick and he knows that. The Dalton play, I got to see the film of that, because something looked funny there.”

On how much field position played a factor into the game: “Massive, massive. That’s like, especially when you’re on the road. Those field position, the field position swings, I would say starting field position for Iowa State, versus starting field position for us. Some of that was penalties. Some of that on the drive, with the hit Dalton had on the kick catch interference. They’re going to have the ball in midfield. And then we added 30 yards of free yards on the kick catch interference. Then the pass interference there down the sideline. So, you know, those are things you can’t do. If we’re going to be a good football team you can’t do those things.”

On the offense not finding any rhythm: “I think that’s one of those things that when your offense doesn’t execute collectively, that’s on everybody that’s a part of it. Coaches, players, all of us. That’s why I’m excited to get back and look at it and see what those issues were. I thought Iowa State has a really sound defense, right? They play hard, they tackle well. Then I think that, you know, when we turn the ball over, those were such huge momentum swings in the game. We would have some momentum, be moving the ball, would get a stop and be moving the ball, and then we had those turnovers come in, like, really, really costly times, and it really impacted the outcome.”

On Quincy Craig’s lack of carries: “Well, I think, you know Ish ran the ball really well against a really good defense a week ago or two weeks ago, and so he got the lion’s share of the carries. We feel great about that running back room. We really do. All those guys can play. All of them can contribute. Tonight we went with Ish.”

On the offensive line’s performance: “I think those guys are coming together, and that’s always an ongoing process with your offensive line, because it’s five players and in that group we’ve got a couple transfers and some young guys playing. I think that Coach Oglesby has done a good job. I think we’re making progress there. It’s not good enough yet, but I think we’re making progress.”

On Fifita not being able to connect with Chris Hunter: “I think, more than anything, I think some of those times Noah got moved off the spot with the pass rush or pressure. So that part of it is frustrating, because Chris has been a really solid player for us.”

On Iowa State’s attack on offense: “I think that’s the hard part about it is with the way they’re built, with their tight ends and their really big offensive line, the quarterback being an effective runner, you know, them always getting to even or, you know, trying to get to plus one in the run game. I thought they did a really good job of moving the football, combined with the big shots over the top. We got into some of those situations and we gave up big plays down the field.”

On the defensive performance: “I think we can play better. I think everybody’s going to say that. I don’t think you need to be a genius to figure that out. I think we can play better in all three phases, and like I said earlier, this game was a big time measuring stick for us and it was a harsh one. It hurts because they beat us and they beat us fair and square. But now, what are we going to do about it? That’s what I want to know, like, what are we going to do about as a team, as a coaching staff? How are we going to fix it because that was not it.”

On Riley Wilson’s performance: “I think we’re excited about Riley. I think Riley’s a guy that we’re excited to have him healthy and ready to rock and roll. You started to see him get in the mix tonight and be effective when he was in there. The linebacker group is a good group for us. So, you know, I think the good thing is to have good players and depth and high level competition in as many positions as we can possibly have.”

On Stukes’ getting his first pick of the season: “Stukes is a leader of our football team. He’s an outstanding young man. He’s a great player, and we’re excited to have him back full speed. I think as you see him continue to play and gain confidence and get his legs underneath him, you’re gonna see more great football plays from Treydan Stukes. So we’re excited he’s back.”

On moving forward after the loss: “Well, I think the biggest thing is that we have to be honest about what happened tonight. We have to be really honest about it. We have to be willing to take the coaching and coaches have to be honest with each other and ourselves about the plays we call, the situation we put our players in. If we’re honest about it and really dive into our process, then that’ll give us a chance to continue to improve as a football team, because we’re one month into this season. Obviously we’ve got a ton of football left to play, and so how we adjust, how we attack the work, how we attack our process, and make the adjustments and whether it’s schematic or personnel changes we need to make, then that’ll put us on the right track for where we want to go. I’ve said this many times, we want to compete for championships, and so we know that we have to get to work and we have to earn that through our process.”

Fifita on the loss: “It’s hard. It’s definitely hard. Losing is always difficult. There’s a lot to learn from it. Got to be able to start faster, especially offensively. Got to help our defense out when they get us those big time stops. So I’ll eat this one. I know Coach Doege takes it personal as well. So we got to help make Coach Doege right, and we gotta get back to the drawing board.”

On the lack of rhythm on offense: “Yeah, I’ll take the blame for that. At the end of the day, the offense is going to go how I go. So if I’m not getting the ball out of my hands, if I’m not putting the ball in play, we’re going to struggle. So I know Coach Doege came in and said, this loss is on him, and respectfully, I disagree. I don’t think I made him right in any situations. I got to be a lot better for him. Got to be a lot better for the offense.”

On his first interception coming off a trick play: “Yeah, it wasn’t necessarily a trick play. It was a play action pass for us. So we wouldn’t necessarily put that in the trick play category, but the corner did a great job coming off in cover two. He made a great play, but I gotta be able to see that and check it out.”

On his passes being short: “I just got to be able to play better in the scheme. That’s something me and Coach Doege just talked about, being able to just trust my eyes, be disciplined with my eyes, and then get the ball where it needs to go.”

On Ismail Mahdi’s performance: “He’s played fantastic since spring ball, since we got him. We knew he was special. I don’t think we knew how special of a person he was. He works extremely hard each and every day. He’s always smiling during some of those off drives. He was a big voice on the sideline for us to keep us up. So he’s a tremendous person, a tremendous leader.”

On Kris Hutson’s performance: “You see he’s super explosive, and he’s a fierce competitor. Every time a play needs to be made, K-Huds going to be able to make it. So it was great to see him back on the field getting his feet back under and I know him and the rest of the receiver room are going to take off.”

On what he can learn from the loss: “We got to respond. That’s our message, Redline and respond. We got to be able to go and do that now. Obviously you want to win them all, but that’s one game in a 12 game season. So we got to be able to bounce back. We got to see how fast we can get back to redline.”

Stukes on the loss: “We just didn’t accomplish our goal, obviously, at the end of day to win. We didn’t do that, obviously. So we got to go back to the drawing board. Can’t go back in time, gotta get back to practice, get it cleaned up and ready to get out here next week.”

On getting his first interception of the season: “It’s always a big time play to get the ball back to the best quarterback in the conference. We’ll try to get some more of them, but at the end of the day, the team goes to win. We didn’t get that done.”

On how Iowa State attacked on third down: “They’re just a really well coached, well disciplined team. They had some good stuff for us. Kind of got us in some beaters, got us in looks they wanted, and were able to capitalize. There was also stuff that we left out there, plays we could have made. We’ll see it tomorrow on film, obviously, and we’ll get back out there and start making those plays.”

On the Iowa State tight ends: “They got some big, big fellas in the tight end room. They run a lot of 12 and 13 personnel. We were prepared for it, we thought. We had a good game plan going in. Just didn’t execute well enough.”

On Riley Wilson’s performance: “We’re happy to have him back. We already knew he could play. We’ve been wanting him to get healthy to see what he can do and obviously he had a pretty solid first game back. Got some reps out there, so we’re hoping to build off of that.”

On what he can learn from the loss: “As far as adversity, this is the best we could ask for. It’s easy to be out in front when things are going good, but when you get your butt kicked, we’ll see how the team’s going to respond. See how we go about our work this week and get back out there next Saturday to get it done.”