Arizona Wildcats overcome injuries, rally to beat Stanford in Pac-12 opener

STANFORD, Calif. — For the second time this season, Arizona faced adversity of some form on the road. This time, however, it didn’t come in the form of turnovers, but rather the injury bug — namely, the loss of starting quarterback Jayden de Laura — in the Wildcats’ gutty 21-20 win Saturday night over the Stanford Cardinal to open Pac-12 play.

Arizona trailed 10-7 at the half and 17-14 at the end of three in a game the Wildcats were, by all accounts, heavily favored to win. Yet near the end of the third quarter, de Laura left the game with a left leg injury and the outcome still very much in doubt. On a third-and-10 play, de Laura rolled to his left, threw an incomplete pass to receiver Montana Lemonious-Craig and was tackled on the Arizona sideline.

De Laura, who ended his night having completed 14 of 26 passes for 157 yards while accounting for two touchdowns, limped to the UA medical tent and sat out the rest of the game. Fisch said he doesn’t “know exactly the extent of Jayden’s injury.”

In relief of de Laura, backup Noah Fifita completed all four of his pass attempts for 47 yards “in a tough situation” and “made some great plays for us,” Fisch said.

“I think the control that he showed was the most important and impressive thing," Fisch said. "I thought Noah handled himself beautifully in that situation and there was no flinch."

On Fifita’s first drive, he led the Wildcats to a nine-play, 67-yard drive that chewed up just under four minutes to set up running back DJ Williams for a touchdown. Ahead 21-20 with 2:59 left to play in the fourth quarter, Fifita’s back-to-back 7-yard passes to wide receiver Jacob Cowing resulted in a first down to secure the win for Arizona.

Arizona utilized run-pass-option plays on Saturday, including on a 7-yard de Laura touchdown run in the third quarter. But when de Laura left with injury, it meant Fifita, a second-year backup, would be playing the first meaningful snaps of his college career.

Fifita said his initial concern was with de Laura’s injury.

“The relationship I built with Jayden since I’ve been here has been nothing short of spectacular, so as soon as he went down and the grimaces he made, the first thing was concerned,” Fifita said. “Then it got to the point where it was all business. A lot of coaches, a lot of my teammates, the offensive guys made sure I was good and comfortable, and I just appreciate all of the faith they had in me, between my teammates and my coaches.”

Postgame, Fisch noted the depth of the Wildcats' injuries beyond de Laura.

“To be honest, there was a little too many (injuries) for my liking today,” Fisch said, “so I need to talk to our doctors, talk to our trainers. ... That was a physical game, which is what you expect when you play Stanford. You don’t come to Stanford and not think you’re going to have a physical football game. That’s been about 20 years straight — and it hasn’t changed.”

Freshman right guard Raymond Pulido, who missed the first three games of the season following a bicycle accident, exited the game twice with a leg injury. Arizona also lost starting running back Michael Wiley, linebacker Justin Flowe and nickelback Martell Irby to injury on Saturday.

The Wildcats were also without starting defensive tackle Bill Norton — though Norton still played special teams — due to a shoulder injury. The Wildcats “held him back for precautionary reasons this week,” Fisch said.

“Right now we were making sure we were getting him healthy for the coming weeks,” he said.

Arizona’s first-quarter woes on offense this season bled into the Wildcats' conference opener. On their first three possessions at Stanford, the UA punted twice (including a three-and-out on the first drive) and turned it over on downs. Since Arizona scored a touchdown on the opening drive against Northern Arizona, the Wildcats have not scored on eight complete drives in the first quarter (possessions that start and end in the period). In that span, Arizona has four turnovers (three interceptions and one fumble), two turnovers on downs, two punts and no points scored.

Arizona has been out-scored 17-7 in the first quarter this season. In second quarters, the Wildcats have out-scored their opponents 35-9. Saturday was Arizona’s first win of the Fisch era when the opponent scored first; the Wildcats were 0-14 before that.

Much like the Wildcats’ road opener at Mississippi State, the Wildcats’ defense kept Stanford at bay. While Stanford scored two touchdowns Saturday, the rest of the Cardinal’s offensive drives ended with a pair of field goals, two missed field goals, and three punts. The Cardinal were 8-for-17 on third- and fourth-down conversions on Saturday.

Homegrown: The Republic's Top 25 all-time Arizona high school football players who played at UA

“Our defense did such a good job against them in terms of holding them to field goals and forcing them to kick field goals, forcing them to convert third-and-longs, they were able to do that,” Fisch said.

On Stanford’s first drive of the game, after a 45-yard run to Arizona’s 7-yard line by Stanford running back Sedrick Irvin, UA cornerback Ephesians Prysock and defensive tackle Tiaoalii Savea, who started his first game as a Wildcat in place of Norton, stuffed running back E.J. Smith. An offensive passing interference penalty and stops by linebackers Jacob Manu and Justin Flowe forced the Cardinal to settle for a 35-yard field goal and an early mini-victory.

The UA defense compiled 11 tackles for loss, the most since Arizona’s win over Colorado in 2018; Arizona’s five sacks are also the most since that game in ‘18.

“Felt like there was a lot of tackles for loss, a lot of negative yardage there, and hats off to our defense and our defensive plan there,” Fisch said.

The Wildcats scored their first points of Saturday’s contest in the second quarter, when de Laura faked a double-screen and connected with tight end Tanner McLachlan up the seam for a 36-yard touchdown. The catch marked McLachlan’s first touchdown of the season — first since the Washington game last season — and the longest reception of his career. De Laura’s pass to McLachlan was akin to a popular play ran by the San Francisco 49ers under head coach Kyle Shanahan.

McLachlan’s 619 career receiving yards moves him to second-most yards by an Arizona tight end behind Rob Gronkowski.

Arizona running back Jonah Coleman had 104 all-purpose yards and led the Wildcats in rushing.Just before halftime, cornerback Tacario Davis nearly gave Arizona its first interception of the season, but the pick in the back of the end zone was called back for passing interference on Davis. Stanford running back Bryce Farrell scored a 2-yard touchdown to give the Cardinal a 10-7 lead heading into the break.

The Wildcats’ win over Stanford on Saturday marked Arizona’s triumph over the Cardinal since 2009 — first win in Palo Alto since 2006.

Arizona (3-1) will now face No. 8 Washington on Saturday for the Wildcats’ Pac-12 home opener.

“It’s not easy to go on the road,” Fisch said. It’s not easy to win on the road in a Pac-12 game.”

“I told the team in the locker room: we’ve won five out of the last seven games we played. We ended (last) season 2-1, we started this season 3-1, and now we’ve gotta go home and we need a great environment back in Tucson.”

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Wildcats overcome injuries, rally past Stanford in Pac-12 opener