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Wildcats promise to learn from mistakes

Associated Press Arizona Daily Wildcat Arizona's Leo Mills (20) scores from inches past Penn State's Brandon Steele (97) with 47 seconds left in the game Saturday in State College, Penn. Celebrating at left is A. Higginbotham (60). On the ground are Wildcats B. Manumaleuna (90) and Eli Wnek (91).

STATE COLLEGE, Penn. - When the clock wound down to zero at the end of Saturday's Arizona-Penn State game, the Wildcat players looked down.

They should have, after being slammed 41-7 by the Nittany Lions in the season opener for both teams.

But that game is now behind them and the Wildcats must regain their focus and remember there are still 11 more games to play this season.

"We've gotta regroup," UA senior quarterback Keith Smith said. "This is a long season and we can't dwell on one game."

Arizona has until Sunday to forget about the Lions because that's when the Wildcats will face off with Texas Christian in Dallas.

"Right now I'm not worried about TCU," UA senior cornerback Kelvin Hunter said.

But his teammates we're already looking ahead.

"As much as it hurts to lose it feels good to know that everything we did wrong today can be fixed," UA junior defensive end Mike Robertson said. "We have to do it quick, though, because we still have a long season ahead of us."

Saturday's loss was the first time the UA had been held to seven points since losing to Southern Cal 14-7 back in 1996.

UA head coach Dick Tomey said the Wildcats will have to pick themselves up in a hurry because the Horned Frogs will be hungry next week.

"TCU is going to be just as tough as Penn State because they have been preparing for us for the last six months," he said. "We've looked at them, certainly, but we've been their sole focus, I'm sure."

If the Wildcats are going to stop the Horned Frogs' option attack, they'll need a better defensive performance than giving up 504 total yards of offense against Penn State.

"Today as a defensive corps we just didn't get the job done," UA senior free safety Rafell Jones said. "Everybody on the defense needs to pick it up."

Jones and Robertson both agreed that tackling better will be a key against TCU.

"I believe everything happens for a reason," Robertson said. "We can still be a great football team. I've been around long enough to know you can learn from losses like this."

Tomey said his job now is to turn a crushing defeat into something positive.

"We need to spend a lot of time looking at this game," he said. "We need to see graphically who we are and where we are as a football team. We need to look for pluses and minuses."

The handful of pluses for the UA included the play of redshirt freshman running back Leo Mills (54 yards, one TD) and junior linebacker Antonio Pierce (game-high 11 tackles, one forced fumble, two passes broken up).

Arizona also played without senior strong safety Greg Payne (ankle) and saw several other players go down with injuries, including Smith, Hunter and senior linebackers DaShon Polk and Marcus Bell.

"You have a sense of who you are after one game and we don't like what we see," Tomey said. "We have a chance to use the hurt and pain of this game as a positive."