Heading into Saturday’s matchup with the Washington football team, Arizona quarterback Anu Solomon had yet to throw an interception in seven games. That all changed in the UW’s 49-3 victory at Husky Stadium.
Solomon, who entered the night with 13 touchdowns, threw two interceptions, and the Huskies forced four turnovers on the way to holding the Pac-12’s best offense to a season-low in points.
On second-and-20 of the Wildcats’ second drive of the night, sophomore cornerback Sidney Jones intercepted Solomon and took it 17 yards to the Arizona 37.
But it didn’t stop there.
Redshirt freshman safety JoJo McIntosh tallied an interception against redshirt senior quarterback Jerrard Randall, who had thrown Arizona’s lone interception of the season before Saturday, with just under one minute left in the first quarter, and returned it 8 yards to the Arizona 45 before going out of bounds. And with two seconds remaining in the second quarter, sophomore safety Budda Baker added the third interception of the night for the UW and the second against Solomon.
“We didn’t tell our guys that they only had one pick. I don’t know if they knew that,” head coach Chris Petersen said. “I didn’t want to plant that seed to those guys. So they came flying out.”
The UW defense shined again on Saturday night, holding the Wildcats to just three points, which came on the first drive of the game, and there were multiple players that left their mark.
Redshirt senior linebacker Travis Feeney came up big for the Huskies, leading the team with 11 tackles, nine solo, and two sacks.
After allowing the field goal, the defense knew they had to make a change in order to take control of the game.
“We were too hyped up, too much energy at first,” Feeney said. “But we settled down … everybody got back in on the game plan and everybody locked in.”
Late in the third quarter, Arizona junior wide receiver Samajie Grant fumbled after a rush for no gain at the UW 38, which was recovered by redshirt junior linebacker Psalm Wooching, who ran it 41 yards to the Arizona 21. This set up freshman quarterback Jake Browning’s first career rushing touchdown, a 12-yard score that gave the UW a 35-3 lead.
“I think our coaches are good game-planners,” Petersen said. “The kids kind of get it and execute. I don’t know exactly what it is other than the guys playing really hard and being physical.”
Arizona entered Saturday first in the conference in both scoring and total offense, but finished with only 330 yards of total offense to the UW’s 468.
“Going into it, they put up a lot of points and that was obviously a big concern on our part,” defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski said. “The guys played really well tonight and did a good job tackling, and it starts with the D-line and they did a good job of not staying blocked.”
As the Huskies prepare to face Utah next Saturday, the defense hopes to continue working on the same things they have been focusing on all season and keep improving on the strong foundation they have built.
“Our whole thing was get turnovers, get turnovers, get turnovers,” Feeney said. “ … Definitely getting the turnovers this game, I mean, it gives us a lot of confidence. A lot of young players were getting the turnovers and the interceptions. … It helps out going into the next week, especially with a good team that we play next week.”
Reach Editor-in-Chief Kathryn Altena at sports@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @kkaltena
