11/21 Arizona Football Notebook: Fisch reviews win over Utah

* Arizona was success on third down against am Utah team that had previously been one of the best in the country in defensive third down percentage.

“Very efficient obviously on third down,” Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch said. “We executed the plan that we wanted to have in place. We felt we had some good answers to what they do on third down and I also felt our players did a great job of executing some plays outside the framework of the play. I think we were 70 percent on third down except the last third and four where we weren’t going to force anything int hat situation. I was really proud of our guys on third down for sure.”

* Tetairoa McMillan continues to impress every week and Fisch had difficulty thinking of something he isn’t good at.

"The guy is unbelievable,” Fisch said. “I need to take him out on the tennis court and see if he’s got anything there. Right now he is 100 for 100 in everything we’ve done. In the spring we did Olympics after the spring game was over. We did a home run derby with a whiffle ball bat and he swung six times and hit six home runs. There’s not much he can’t do.”

* Anthony Ward blocked a punt and returned it for a touchdown on Saturday and his success is indicative of a much larger picture.

“We put him on scholarship this fall,” Fisch said. “What was pretty cool was we put Nazar Bombata and Anthony on scholarship and if you can remember the play, Naz took the double team, which allowed Anthony to split them and get up right in front of the punter and block it. It was kind of a cool deal, kind of poetic. Our guys loved it.

“When we watched it yesterday, it was a great reminder that you work hard, you be a great leader, do things right on and off the field, there are going to be times you can be rewarded. Really happy for him. He does a really good job of keeping the team together.

“I thought it was super cool that they did a study session Saturday night after the game as a full team and when they did that they were all together from walk-ons to scholarship players and they all hung out together. From what I understand, the way our team works together and loves one another, you don’t know the difference between a scholarship player and walk-on. Anthony is a prime example of that.”

* Noah Fifita has played well this season, but he has also had some issues with completing deep passes at times.

“That’s something we have to get better at,” Fisch said. “I look back and at this point in time, we had 132 explosive plays last year and we have 107 this year. It probably comes on one or two passes a game that we would like to try to hit on outside the numbers.

“There is some of it that goes into have you thrown those balls to those receivers all spring and have you thrown those balls to the receivers all camp. Maybe, maybe not. It could be when I call it maybe we haven’t hit it at the right time or gotten the perfect looks. It feels like we’ve left a few outside, which doesn’t give you any chance at all. We’re working through it. Some of it is fundamentals, some of it is coverage, some of it is connecting with the right rhythm and timing.”