What Arizona coach Brent Brennan said after losing to BYU

This week ahead of his team’s Saturday matchup with BYU, Arizona coach Brent Brennan offered a quote that became a bit of bulletin board material for the Cougars and their fans.

Referring to Arizona’s most recent visit to Provo in 2024, Brennan said he “didn’t feel like the (BYU) crowd was a problem,” instead attributing that loss to Wildcat turnovers and overall poor performance.

But Cougar fans still took issue with what Brennan said — despite him having later added that LaVell Edwards Stadium had a “great crowd” — and BYU’s official social media accounts even posted a hype video Friday night that began with a clip of Brennan’s quote.

After Arizona fell 28-17 Saturday for its sixth consecutive loss to the Cougars, Brennan could only laugh about his earlier quote, which he said had been taken “out of context.”

“It’s a great environment. They do a great job here with that,” Brennan told reporters postgame.

“... That was a crazy quote, you know what I mean? My players were like, ‘Coach, they’re killing you (online),” he continued with a laugh.

After leading 17-14 at halftime Saturday, the Wildcats were shut out in the second half, with BYU putting up a pair of touchdowns to fend off upset-hungry Arizona.

“We just have to finish,” Brennan said. “That comes down to execution. That is (the) red line for us, and we didn’t finish in the fourth quarter on offense or defense.

“As frustrated as we are, I was proud of how hard we played. I thought we played physical. I thought we ran the ball effectively against a really good defense.”

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The Wildcats’ clock struck midnight with just over eight minutes left to play in the fourth quarter, as a Noah Fifita pass to Rodney Gallagher III on fourth and 4 was ruled short of the first down, which gave the ball back to the Cougars for them to score an insurance touchdown.

“That’s football. They made a good play,” Brennan said of the fourth down stop. “They were right at the sticks. I think that’s disappointing, but really in that moment what choice do you have, right?

“The only choice you have is to get back to fighting because there’s still plenty of time left in the football game, and in my opinion, we did not execute at the level we need to.”

Arizona is now 1-1 on the season with the loss and heads back to Tucson to host Northern Illinois next Saturday and attempt to return to the win column.

“The biggest thing is that we went on the road, we played a top 15 team and we battled for four quarters,” Brennan said. “We played physical, we played tough, we didn’t back down.

“We’re disappointed with the outcome. That part of it is not fun, but we have so much football left to play. What’s important is what we do next with our next opportunity to improve and get better.”