The Arizona Wildcats need a win Saturday to avoid their first 0-2 start since 1981. In their way stand the Houston Cougars, who are coming off a season-opening win against Rice. Houston opened as a four-point favorite against visiting Wildcats. Will the Wildcats turn their season around and pick up their first win? Or will the Cougars take care of business? Here is what we think will happen. Make sure to leave your predictions in the comment section below. Christopher Boan — Houston wins 42-28 There are so many reasons why I believe that the unstoppable force that is Ed Oliver will somehow single-handedly manhandle the Wildcats’ ramshackle offensive line. There’s also the fact that D’Eriq King might be the most underrated QB in the nation, coming off a smoking hot debut against Rice last week, throwing for 320 yards and three touchdowns. Those aspects, plus Noel Mazzone’s inability to let Khalil Tate do what he does best (IE, not chucking the ball 34 times per game), lead me to believe the Cougs will win this one comfortably. It’ll be an awkward week in Tucson leading up to the gimme game against Southern Utah, as there’s going to be plenty of finger-pointing going on in the Old Pueblo. Brian Pedersen — Houston wins 35-24 I had Arizona losing this game before the season, mostly because of the expectation that the inexperienced offensive line wouldn’t be able to keep Ed Oliver off Khalil Tate. That still applies but my prediction is now based just as much on Houston’s potent offense and the likelihood it’s going to torch the Wildcat D. The complete lack of a pass rush against BYU is a bad sign since Houston’s attack is far more explosive, and its ability to score quickly makes it very possible the Cougars will jump out to a lead early and force Arizona to play catchup. That means scrapping any plans—there are plans, right?!?!? !—of having Tate run more in favor of the same kind of downfield passing from last week. Arizona starts 0-2 for the first time since 1981. Gabe Encinas — Houston wins 27-23 Wow this is tough. And seeing two Houston predictions above me is hard to swallow. No, I’m not just totally jumping off the ship after Week 1, but I am a lot more worried than I originally was. I never felt like 0-2 start was out of the realm of possibilities — it was my worst nightmare — but here we are. The offensive line wasn’t as terrible as I would have expected — they obviously gave Tate enough time to throw those deep balls — but this is Ed Oliver going up against four new starters that includes a new center, a left guard who has never played guard and a true freshman left tackle. But I’m interested to see how much the coaching staff actually changes after just one week. They did a terrible job of putting their best guys in position to make plays. Two designed runs for Khalil Tate, constant deep balls, crafty running backs going between the tackles, not much activity in the passing game for running backs, no tight ends, no quick tempo throws to get the offense in rhythm and let the athletes work after the catch. It’s up to the staff to make those adjustments and tailor the play-calling to their players’ best traits. If they use Tate more in the running game, it opens everything up and that’s what we need to see on Saturday. Arizona’s defense was unimpressive for returning so many starters and bringing so much size in year three. I will always give Arizona defenses a little more slack because of the nature of the offense, and when your drives are a minute in real time the fatigue really sets in. Add that to the fact that the defense couldn’t generate any pressure, sacks or turnovers and it looks like a defense worse than last year. Zant Reyez — Houston wins 35-28 I should probably stick to writing about softball and non-revenue sports after how off I was last week, but here I am again. 28 points for the ‘Cats seems a little high because I think Ed Oliver is going to laugh at the O-line as he beats them snap after snap. I’m optimistic the O-line will improve, but when the potential No. 1 pick in the NF Draft is lining up on the other side of the ball, I’m just hoping the line can stand its ground more times than not. This week I don’t see Khalil Tate chuckling the ball deep as much as he did last week because I don’t think he will have enough time to sit in the pocket with Oliver coming at him. I see a lot of screens and quick passes for UA. Oh, and hopefully a lot of letting Tate keep the ball in his hands and letting him do what he does best. I’m not going to be too hard on the defense because I thought the secondary and linebackers played decent. The D-line, however, is another story. I thought the D-line would be somewhat improved since more weight was added to it, but it appears teams will still be able to run up the middle with ease. Starting the season 0-2 would make AD Dave Heeke sweat a little extra, but I hope fans keep the faith. Alec Sills-Trausch — Houston wins 24-18 Ohhh boy. Here we go. (Side note: if you continue reading, you won’t learn much. It’s just me rambling on. Good luck.) To me, I view this game as a straight coin flip. I have no idea if Arizona will figure things out on offense. I have no idea if Ed Oliver will literally be the only person to come out on defense and still wreck our offensive line. I really don’t know. What I do know is the team looked embarrassingly flat last week in a game and atmosphere which should have allowed for neither. It’s quite disappointing when you have as talented a player in Tate and you do not know what to do with him. So, until Arizona gets a win, I won’t expect a win. Seems like sound logic, right? Anyways, Cougars hold at home. Jason Bartel — Houston wins 31-17 I have always thought that Houston would win this game and I have had no reason to come off that. When going up against one of the premier defensive lines in the game, your weakness can’t be your offensive line. Unfortunately, that is Arizona’s weakness. I think a lot of things are working against the Wildcats in this one and they just won’t be able to overcome the early start and get their first win of the Kevin Sumlin era while visiting his old school. Rob Leano — Houston Wins 35-24 Everyone above me has some shared thoughts to my own. I’ve had thought it would have been a close game even with the hype before week 1. Now, the ball leans towards Houston’s favor. Prove me wrong, Arizona. Show us that Week 1 was a fluke and that we really should buy in. Ryan Kelapire — Houston wins 31-24 As much as I’d like to go against the grain and pick Arizona in this game, I just can’t do it. There are just too many things working against them. Here are just some of them: Ed Oliver against UA’s shaky offense line The early kickoff time The hot, humid weather vs. Arizona’s lack of depth A promising Houston passing game vs. Arizona’s non-existent pass rush Houston’s home-field advantage Arizona using Khalil Tate as a pocket-passer The only way Arizona wins this game is if Tate has one of those signature games where he is consistently breaking off big gains on the ground and through the air. Unfortunately, he has not had one of those games since the USC or Oregon State game last year, and the setting just doesn’t seem right for one to happen in Houston.<doc-sep>Kevin Sumlin’s return to Houston is ... not going well. It’s pretty clear that the Wildcats have some big problems on both side of the ball, but particularly on defense. The Cougars jumped all over the Wildcats early, with three touchdowns in the first quarter on their first three drives. To open things up, Houston’s Marquez Stevenson took this screen pass to the house for a 24-yard touchdown. Man, what a play to stay on his feet by Houston's Marquez Stevenson. pic.twitter.com/ZJ83OEQVvF — Chris Hummer (@chris_hummer) September 8, 2018 As good as the footwork is to stay on his feet, pay attention to the ball placement by QB D’Eriq King on the pass. If this pass is behind Stevenson, he’s likely tackled for a loss and the Cougars get nothing on the play. King would take matters into his own hands with a 1-yard TD on Houston’s second drive, and then come back with this 52-yard hookup with Romello Brooker on their third series: La défense des Wildcats d'Arizona... ‍♂️ Et beau travail de coach Sumlin. Avec son OC Noel Mazzone, ils arrivent à rendre QB Khalil Tate complètement inoffensif. Houston 21, Arizona 0pic.twitter.com/J0ibh4SJZm — TBP College Football (@thebluepennant) September 8, 2018 I mean ... just look at how open Brooker is: How wide open was the Houston TE on that TD against Arizona’s defense? #mildcats pic.twitter.com/jWNJntRUyQ — julian chwang (@ChwangJulian) September 8, 2018 So how did this happen? How did a man of Brooker’s size — 6’5”, 253 pounds — get this wide open? Let’s have a quick lesson in the wheel route. Focus on the two guys in the red boxes: Brooker’s motion from the opposite side of the formation creates a conflict for them. Houston’s deepest defender carries the Houston receiver in the white box up the seam, and that’s fine. But Arizona’s No. 37, Xavier Bell, doesn’t stay with Brooker as he heads up field. Instead, he stays shallow to help out on the screen action Houston is running with No. 1, Bryson Smith. That was a mistake. But that’s what the wheel route is designed to do. Brooker initially looks like he’s heading out into the flat, in which case Bell would probably have been alright, but the second Brooker heads vertically, the jig is up because there’s no body over the top. Arizona’s deepest defender can’t be in two places at once. Brooker burned everyone, and put the Cougars up three scores. Houston would add to its lead and make it 31-0 by halftime. Oh, and for good measure, this deficit could be much worse for the Wildcats, but the Cougars couldn’t connect on either home run ball here. Arizona was close to getting burned for a TD twice on back-to-back plays, but Houston receivers couldn't hold on. pic.twitter.com/bqTbataPGy — Prime Bam Childress (@fearthe_beard11) September 8, 2018 Houston is rolling. Arizona is not. But make no mistake, this isn’t an upset. The Cougars came in as a 4-point favorite, but they’re playing much better than that.<doc-sep>The Arizona Wildcats are 0-2 for the first time since 1981 after getting blown out by the Houston Cougars on Saturday by a score of 45-18. The Wildcats were outclassed in every facet of the game, even if the yardage totals — both teams eclipsed the 500-yard mark — were relatively even. Khalil Tate accumulated career-highs in completions (24), pass attempts (45) and passing yards (351), but most of those numbers were accumulated with the game already out of reach. Arizona trailed 31-0 at halftime and later 38-0. Tate was limited to just eight rushing yards after suffering an ankle injury early on. Some bright spots for Arizona included true freshman running back Darrius Smith, who rushed for 51 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries in his hometown. Shawn Poindexter hauled in seven passes for 134 yards and Shun Brown caught a career-high nine passes for 73 yards. Dylan Klumph punted six times for 254 yards (42.3 average). More takeaways from the game can be found here. Here is what Coach Kevin Sumlin had to say afterward. (Be sure to check out Khalil Tate’s postgame interview here.) Sumlin’s overall thoughts on the game... “It’s really kind of the same story as last week. We didn’t start fast, got behind and had to change the game plan a little bit because of a couple things. We gotta start faster and for the number of plays that we were running, it’s not equating to the point-production that we need. I think we ran over 100 plays today and got 18 points. It’s very frustrating and so we have to examine that piece and we had eight penalties today, which we didn’t do that last week. Last week, we had four penalties and no turnovers. We had eight penalties and two turnovers today. A combination of all those things, that adds to your slow start and those are things we have to fix.” On the game plan for Khalil Tate and how it changed after the ankle injury... “I think you could see early in the game the game plan was a little bit different for him for him to run inside and perimeter, but the conversation with him on the sideline is that he wasn’t comfortable with that. We talked with him every series that he wanted to play. I thought he did some good things in the second half. “Sometimes when you have (an ankle injury), the initial pain is one thing but if anyone’s ever twisted an ankle, you know that once you stop for a while, that’s when it gets worse. He kept it loose, he wanted to play, and those were the conversations we had between series.” Sumlin said it took Arizona too long to adjust... “We got to the third quarter and obviously we were able to sit down and do some other things and move the football. But a lot of things you practiced that week you can draw a line through them. But at the same token, we also ran some plays in the second half that we didn’t practice very much this week and we just added them to the game plan, with where Khalil was and I thought our guys did a nice job adjusting on the sideline in the second half.” Sumlin said a combination of Houston’s tempo and deep passing attack made it difficult for the Wildcats’ defense... “They hit a couple of them, but we had a couple pass interference calls and we’re short one corner right now. We’ll get Jace (Whittaker) back this week and that’ll help us as well.” On how to turn things around... “You look where we’re at right now, we’ve got four new linemen and we’ll get Layth (Friekh) back this week. Two of our defenders that have played a lot of football for us on the back end (Whittaker and Scottie Young Jr.), we haven’t had. “We’re not the team that we want to be. We’re also not the same team personnel and that’s a work in progress. That changes this week with three players that have played a lot of football here that can make us better. “As you say that, we’ve got to find a way to start faster and be consistent. There were some moments where it was really good football and trust me, we had that conversation at halftime about what football was going to look like from us in the second half because it didn’t look very good in the first and second quarter. If there was a positive, it’s that they responded to the challenge at halftime.” On Poindexter’s seven-catch, 134-yard game and a few other standouts... “Shawn has proven the last couple weeks that he’s been consistent and he’s been effective. I thought Tony (Fields) again was consistent and effective. Darrius (Smith), his nickname’s Bam, he’s back at home and what you see there is you’ve added a third back. He’s a young guy that’s got a bright future that can get into the rotation and do some things. (Colin) Schooler continues to play his heart out and he’s all over the place.” On why Arizona punted while down 20 with five minutes left in regulation... “We just got a safety and we got the ball back and it was 4th and almost 10. We hadn’t been very successful on third-and-long yardage plays, holding up in protection. So we wanted to try to get the ball and pin them back down there and see if we can make something happen.”<doc-sep>
The Arizona Wildcats need to be ready to go early in the morning on Saturday. Coming off a BYU loss, this game serves as a must-win, and it’s up to the big playmakers of this team to step up. Last week the five players I said to watch seemed to be a mixed bag. Wide receiver Shawn Poindexter certainly made a handful of plays while running back Gary Brightwell was poorly used between the tackles and did not receive any targets. Cornerback Tim Hough suddenly had to start in place of Jace Whittaker and seemed to hold his own, and while the hype surrounding defensive lineman PJ Johnson this offseason was plentiful he failed to record a tackle or generate much over the middle. And punter Dylan Klumph has some good distance, but some line drivers allowed for a good return and he tried to show a little too much leg on his first punt resulting in an easy touchback. Now let’s take a look at this weeks players to watch. (I have added an extra player, since this is an important week. Scottie Young Jr. I won’t be surprised to see Young on the field in the first defensive series. Benefiting from Rich Rodriguez desperation, Young remained on the team after his domestic violence arrest. Sumlin took some corrective action by suspending him all offseason. Young was then suspended for Week 1 as well. Now that he served his time it seems as if he is 100% available, and Arizona needs him. During Saturday’s game, Isaiah Hayes was one of the lone bright spots on the defense. Tristan Cooper was banged up at spur and the staff tried to roll out one of the top performers in camp, Dayven Coleman, but later subbed him out for Xavier Bell. Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles is another story. Pass coverage still seems to be a huge area of concern, letting guys get behind him and make a play. Some conversations I had with you all on Twitter this week seemed to have one thing in common: you need to have Scottie Young and Isaiah Hayes on the field together. Young can play either position, spur or bandit. Based on his skill set and performance at the position now, bandit would be a match made in heaven. But understandably so, I see why spur has the optics of a better safety group. Isaiah Hayes Prior to the season, I was all for Jarrius Wallace to start at free safety. I never really considered much of Hayes. He started as a true freshman in 2016, but had some injuries here and there, and missed all of last season because of shoulder surgery. I wasn’t sure where or what he would be like after that. He came away with 11 tackles and seemed to be everywhere on Saturday. This is a really big win for Arizona’s defense. Right now you’re getting really great play out of Hayes, which gives Arizona’s most crowded position group a good problem to have. I’m looking forward to seeing what Hayes can do to follow up in Week 2, as I feel he has already done enough in camp and Week 1 to keep his starting role. Similar to Dane Cruikshank last year, you need your best players on the field. Going back to my logic with Scottie Young, the floor of the defense raises tremendously when you keep Hayes at free and move Young somewhere else. You just can’t be without Hayes on the field at this point. Kylan Wilborn Wilborn didn’t get a lot of action on Saturday and I feel like the defense was missing his pass rush. Arizona failed to generate much pressure to get to BYU QB Tanner Mangum, recording zero sacks and forcing no turnovers. I was waiting for Wilborn to get back into the game, beat the left tackle and come away with a strip sack. It never happened because he wasn’t really on the field. Whether that was due to injury, I’m unsure, but the stud position has a steep drop off after Wilborn. Lee Anderson played quite a bit and then Jalen Harris finished the game out. Regardless of his backup, Arizona really needed Wilborn on Saturday to help turn the tide. He recorded one tackle, as did Anderson, so there was little to no production at the position. Shun Brown Aside from Khalil Tate, Brown is Arizona’s best playmaker on offense. He only touched the ball once against BYU.