UCLA Football Preview: Arizona's Jedd Fisch Has Cats Moving in the Right Direction
Arizona is looking for its third win in a row and it's third straight win against a Top 20 opponent.
With four games left in the 2023 football season, Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch and the Wildcats have already matched their win total for 2022. That also means that Fisch needs just one win to make Arizona bowl-eligible for the first time since he took over in 2021.
It hasn’t been the easiest road for Fisch.
In his first season, the Wildcats won just one game all season. Last year, the team improved to 5-7. This season, they are 5-3 so far. While that still isn’t great, it’s easy for Arizona fans to be optimistic about the direction of their favorite team.
That’s because the average margin of defeat last season was 17.2 points per game in their seven losses while this year’s three defeats have been by an average of 5.3 points per game. They lost by seven to both Mississippi State and Washington and they dropped a triple overtime thriller to Southern Cal by two points.
As if that’s not enough, their last two games have seen the Wildcats beat a pair of Top 20 teams in Washington State and Oregon State. If Arizona is able to win this weekend, it will be the team’s first three game winning streak under Fisch.
Of course, last November, they came into the Rose Bowl to face the 12th-ranked Bruins and beat them 34-28.
As far as the rest of the Arizona coaching staff goes, it’s basically the same Wildcat staff as last year with one notable exception.
Brendan Carroll, the son of “Cheatey Petey,” is still the team’s offensive coordinator and offensive line coach, even if he’s the OC in name only, given that Fisch is an offensive-minded head coach.
Former UCLA defensive line coach Johnny Nansen is back for his second year as the team’s defensive coordinator.
Other recent Bruin assistants are back, too, in Jimmie Dougherty and Jason Kaufusi. Former Bruin receiver Darren Andrews also returns for his second season as an offensive analyst and graduate assistant.
The only notable coach from last year’s staff who is no longer with the Cats is former UCLA defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker, who is now a defensive analyst with Arizona State. Walker was replaced by Duane Akina, who spent the past nine seasons as Stanford’s defensive backs coach. Akina coached the Arizona defensive backs, among other roles under Dick Tomey, helping lead the “Desert Swarm” defensive attack.
Let’s look at the Wildcats’ Special Teams.
Special Teams
Junior Tyler Loop is back as the team’s placekicker. Loop has been perfect on extra points so far this season and he’s made 11 of his 13 field goal attempts. The only two he’s missed were a 45-yarder against UTEP and a 50-yard try which would have put Arizona ahead in the game against Southern Cal and probably allowed them to win the game in regulation. Loop has also handled all of the team’s 47 kickoffs with 40 of them going for touchbacks.
Kyle Ostendorp is back for his senior season as the Wildcats’ punter, but his punting average has dropped by about six yards per punt. Last year when UCLA played the Cats, he was averaging just over 46 yards per punt. This year, he’s averaging just over 40 yards per punt. He continues to be an effective punter, though, because eight of his 19 punts have landed inside the 20-yard line and just one punt has gone for a touchback.
Senior Jacob Cowing remains the Wildcats’ punt returner, even if he hasn’t been particular effective. His season-long this year is just 20 yards and he’s averaging 6.43 yards per punt return. Last season, he averaged 8.0 yards per punt return with a long of 33. Cowing has also returned one kickoff for six yards.
The team’s primary kickoff return man has been senior running back Michael Wiley,, who has returned four kickoffs for an average of 19.25 yards per return. His longest return this season is just 23 yards.
Go Bruins!!!
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