Arizona’s players of the game vs. ASU

These are the UA players that stood out in the heartbreaking loss to ASU

Well, the Territorial Cup was a wild game as usual, and the Arizona Wildcats fell short 42-30 to the rival Arizona State Sun Devils.

Our recap can be found here, but let’s take a look at which UA players stood out, despite the loss.

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Offense: Khalil Tate, QB

Game Stats: 11-for-13, 132 yds, 0 TD, 0 INT; 8 car, 28 yds, 1 TD

Tate was the offensive star. He was darn-near perfect in the first half. Then, during the final two drives of the half, UA went super conservative, wasting opportunities to put more distance between it and ASU.

And unfortunately, the last play of the half, Tate was rocked on a questionable Hail Mary down the field. Tate wasn’t the same afterward. A handoff to a running back probably would have been sufficient to run out the half.

Tate missed most of the second half and UA’s offense mostly struggled without him.

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Defense: Colin Schooler, LB

Game Stats: 13 tackles, 2.0 TFL, 1.0 sack

Schooler continues to be an issue for opposing offenses. He was playing out of his mind for most of the game and he definitely is going to have a bright future. He read plays overall pretty well, but did have some freshmen mistakes (which will happen, but they were few and far between).

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Special Teams: Shun Brown, WR/PR

It sounds silly but I want to recognize Brown’s effort and ability to use his blockers well. Brown had a punt return for a touchdown, with nice blocking, called back by a solid side-block that was deemed as a block-in-the-back by the refs.

Even looking at that block in realtime, I’m not sure why or how or who saw that as a penalty. Either way, great effort by Brown. The rest of the special teams, mainly the punting unit, were just awful.

Brown also had two catches for 32 yards.

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Honorable Mention

J.J. Taylor, RB: 12 car, 74 yds, 1 TD; 1 rec, 5 yds, 0 TD — Taylor had another great game. He didn’t try to do too much, like at Oregon, and showed some great vision.

Shawn Poindexter, WR: 2 rec, 53 yds, 0 TD — Both of Poindexter’s catches were amazing efforts and helped out his quarterbacks when they needed it. The only issue was he dropped a 2-point conversion that was in his hands.

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