With Arizona clinging to a 16-10 lead, having just given up a touchdown and then backed up following a penalty on a kickoff, the visiting team was feeling every bit of the sellout crowd at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Then the Wildcats converted a pair of 3rd-and-11 plays, the last on a stellar pass from Noah Fifita to Keyan Burnett for the game-sealing TD, and the crowd of 52,898 fell mostly silent.

UA coach Brent Brennan is hoping to feel that same energy—the first part, at least—when the Wildcats play their first Big 12 home game on Saturday against Texas Tech.

“That place was rocking, rocking,” Brennan said. “I can’t wait for Arizona Stadium this weekend to be rocking like that, like I cannot wait. Our first Big 12 game, I cannot wait.”

Here’s what else Brennan said after his Monday presser to start Texas Tech week:

On changing offensive play callers: “I know that’s a hot topic. When we first brought Coach (Dino) Babers in here, from the beginning the intent was for him to really help the young coaches grow and develop, and he’s been doing a fantastic job with the offensive staff. And watching that over time, we felt like going into bye week was the right time for Coach (Matt) Adkins to, with the help of Dino, to kind of step into that role. With the game against Utah, we felt like it was a strategic advantage for us to not disclose that before. And so that was how we approached it. Coach Babers has been on board with this. He’s been great about it. We’ve had a lot of conversations about it, and and he’s incredibly supportive of Matt and the staff, and everyone’s working really well together. Coach Babers is such an important part of what we’re doing here, and I really, really value his contributions to our offense, our players and the coaching mentorship he provides for our young coaches.to our offense players.”

On Tacario Davis’ play: “It’s great to see Tacario smiling and having fun. I think he really … enjoyed the moment. He responded to the big stage and the big crowd the way you would expect him. With Bobo, he’s got such length that that length becomes a problem. He can take vertical speed off you, and then he can get his hands on footballs a lot of other guys can’t. What an incredible game by our whole defense. In order to make those plays, we also need incredible push up front. The front seven was fantastic. I thought our D-line was just excellent.”

On Alexander Doost starting at RG: “Some of it was we’re a little bit banged up, and he got a lot of rest during the week. We were so proud of him. I had this awesome moment walking out of the tunnel with him after the game, and you can just see how proud he was of himself and how he played. We’re all really excited about that. I thought our offensive line was excellent. To give up no sacks against that group? Year in and year out, that’s one of the best defensive fronts in the country every year, fantastically coached. To go into their place and give up zero sacks, I think it’s an incredible performance by all those guys.”

On the ‘No Fefe’ shirts worn by the team at Utah: “That’s a cool story. Last week, Coach (Lyle) Moevao’s mother passed away. When he was playing at Oregon State, she was kind of a team mom. Coach (Joe) Seumalo talked to our team about it Friday. When they were leaving for a trip, she would always get on the team bus, which is like crazy, right, for a parent to get on our team bus? But she would get on the team bus, and she would get on each bus, and she would pray for everybody, and then she would say ‘No Fefe,’ which in Samoan translates to ‘No Fear.’ And so we wore those shirts in honor of her.”

On potential redshirt and opt-out decisions: “There’s some guys that are still trying to figure that out and we’ll figure that out in the next couple days. And then there’s other guys that are kind of on the ready. I don’t want to … use a year and not play, like that doesn’t make any sense to me. So if a freshman decides to play, or we decide to play a freshman, he’s in the game. And I will be on everyone’s rear end about that. If we’re saying that he’s gonna play he’s gonna play.”

On why he didn’t challenge the incompletion call that looked like a fumble and UA recovery: “Because it went into a timeout, a television timeout at that time. So that gave them four minutes to look at. So I wasn’t going to challenge it. The guys on the headset, I’m talking to them, they’re watching the replay, and they’re like, it’s close. And so then I’m talking to officials, and they’re like, no, we’re already looking at it. We’re still looking at, we’re still looking at it. And so at that point, I’m not going to want to challenge that.”

On not going for 2 after Burnett’s TD: “It was just the kind of the automatic with Tyler (Loop), that part of it, not wanting to give them any momentum. The swings of momentum in that game were so drastic. I’m pretty sure that that drive was, that was the penalty on the kickoff return. Is that right? That was the penalty on the kickoff return, so we were starting the drive on the 13-yard line. It was so loud in there. We had the 3rd and 11 and we converted it to Devin Hyatt. Awesome play by Devin, awesome throw by Noah. And that drive continued to extend and then Keyan made the play. So I just decided to take the points, and our defense was playing well.”

On attempting a 56-yard kick up 23-10 rather than punting: “4th and 9, I thought it too long. And I thought we were a little bit too close to punt it. If you punt, it goes out the end zone, it’s a 15-yard differential. And it really came out to the talent and what a great player Tyler Loop is, and so I just thought Tyler would bang this thing through. And he didn’t, but then our defense came out and played great defense. Also some of that goes into how your defense is play at the time.”

On Tetairoa McMillan looking tired late in games: “It’s a hard thing about it, because T-Mac is such a great player, you want him on the field all the time. You also know that you need to spell him so that you can have his best at the end of the game when it’s needed. That is a coaching (nightmare), I’ve fought that my whole life with great wide receivers. I had the same problem at Oregon State with Brandin Cooks. It’s a hard one. He is in great shape. He also plays incredibly hard. He blocks hard. We have him running all over the field and moving him in all different positions. We’re asking a lot of him also. And so there’s a balance there for us offensively.”

On the defensive line: “I don’t think there was anything different about their approach, but they did play great. I think that was just fantastic. I thought Tre Smith was outstanding. Stanley (Ta’ufo’ou) was so good. There’s so many guys that contributed. And then combined with how Jacob Manu played and just the overall physicality we played with. That was to me the most exciting part of that game was the physicality that we displayed on both sides of the ball.”