Arizona football came out ready to put on a show against BYU, but offensive struggles and a porous defense delivered a shocking upset in Tucson.
Well, this was unexpected. Arizona, who came into this game as heavy favorites, considered to be one of the best teams in the Pac-12, just got outplayed by a team that went 4-9 last year. Despite a last-ditch effort from the Wildcats, BYU was able to hold on for a shocking Week 1 victory, 28-23.
This is not at all how Kevin Sumlin envisioned his first game at Arizona going. Arizona was overmatched for almost the entire game, struggling to move the ball consistently, thanks to a pretty baffling lack of Khalil Tate running and some very solid BYU defense. The inconsistent offense paired with some pretty porous defense made for a very long night for a team that had some very high hopes this season.
Obviously, those hopes are still somewhat intact, but this is a nightmare start for Arizona, and a dream start for BYU. Kelani Sitake needed a big win, and he got it tonight. I’m not sure if I’m ready to go all in on BYU being good (more on this shortly), but they certainly looked better in this game than they did in pretty much any game last season.
With this result, Arizona falls to 0-1 on the season, and BYU starts off the right way at 1-0. Let’s take a look at what we can learn from the biggest upset of the day in college football.