The Utah Utes have had a season to remember thus far while the Arizona Football team would relish just one more win to become bowl eligible.

Here are the standings for the Pac-12 by division.

The Utes

Utah’s current team goal is to be the Champs of the Pac-12 South, and then they’ll focus on moving forward towards the National Championship.

But is the team looking past the Wildcats? The answer is no, unfortunately. The fact that Utah has lost the last three games to Arizona is not lost on the coach either.

On the Pac-12 conference call, Coach Whittingham explained that he is focused on Arizona, and he is concerned about the Wildcats running game. “What makes them [Arizona] dangerous is that they’ve had our number for the last three years,” he said, “They’ve kicked our butt the last three years, that’s the danger, we’ve had no answer for their run game..and they are running the football exceptionally well again this year, nearly 250 yards a game so we’ve got our hands full, and our work cut out for us.”

Whittingham also explained what is it like coaching a winning team? “When you’re losing your team is much more fragile and you have to be careful how you handle them..when you’re winning, they have bought in and they’ll believe in what you’re doing and really they’ll pay attention to pretty much whatever you say,” said Whittingham, “You’re part psychologist when you are a coach there’s no doubt about that, you gotta be tuned in..it’s just a matter of you having a good feel for where your guys are at and what hot buttons to push and how to handle them.”

Oct 31, 2015; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Utah Utes running back Devontae Booker (23) carries the ball during the second half against the Oregon State Beavers at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Utah won 27-12. Mandatory Credit: Russ Isabella-USA TODAY Sports

Utah’s head coach also had some comments about wide receiver Britain Covey, “He’s leading the team in receptions..he’s created a spark for us and not only as a receiver but in the punt return game. He’s leading the conference by a wide margin in punt returns as far as just yards gained in the punt returns..he’s been a big bright spot for us…he has exceeded expectations.”

Pac-12 Notes:

Senior RB Devontae Booker rushed for 150 yards 34 carries (4.4 Avg) in the win at Washington. It was his sixth 100-yard rushing game this season and 13th of his career. He has now rushed for 1,116 yards this season, the 15th 1,000 yard rushing season by a Ute. Booker now ranks fourth all-time at Utah with 2,628 career rushing yards.

Senior QB Travis Wilson has set the school record for most starts ever by a Utah quarterback with 35. Wilson’s 22 career wins is second all-time, trailing the 26 wins by Brian Johnson (2004-05, 07-08).

The Wildcats

Also on this week’s Pac-12 Coaches Teleconference, a lot of questions were answered by head coach Rich Rodriguez, especially questions about the players, how the coaches are leading them and the energy in the locker room. The answers might surprise you.

Coach Rich Rodriguez was asked by Ted Miller of ESPN if he uses a pat on the back or fire and a brimstone mentality to motivate his team. “Probably Both. I’ve done both. I’ve tried everything. You want to try to be as positive as possible, but there are certain things that you know fire and brimstone, if the guys are starting to feel sorry for themselves, or they need a kind of a wake-up call. But if they’re playing with good effort and giving me all the attention they’re supposed to have, then you can stay positive with it.”

Sep 19, 2015; Tucson, AZ, USA; Arizona Wildcats head coach Rich Rodriguez talks to quarterback Anu Solomon (12) during the first quarter against the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks at Arizona Stadium. Arizona won 77-13. Mandatory Credit: Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports

Coach Rodriguez offered his thoughts on team’s performance in the game against USC, “In the last game, in particular, I thought the effort was pretty good. I thought their focus was pretty good. We just didn’t execute when we needed to,” he said, “So we’ve been doing both for a little bit, and I think our guys kind of expect when they are not doing everything right that we’re going to stay on them but the same time they gotta know that we still believe in ’em. That we, and not just coaches but players, got to believe in each other too, and I think they still think that.”

We’ve been waiting to hear this for a long time. Throughout the middle of the season, the team went through a lot of adversity, and fans wondered how the coaching staff was motivating the players if at all. There were assumptions made that the team gave up; they didn’t have heart, that the locker room was a hot mess. Did the coaches rule with an iron fist or did the constructive criticism come with some tender loving care? Now we have the answer, and the answer is both.

For the first time, Coach Rodriguez explained just how tenuous the situation is at this point and reinforced the team’s goals.

“Well, I think it’s, from a coach-speak standpoint, it’s just been execution in key times..we’re not deep enough or good enough to play poorly and win. So we gotta play well and then we gotta play well at key moments particularly late in the game..what happened in the last game, we played well at times but we didn’t play well enough in the fourth quarter at key times to pull out the win.”

Just how on point must his team perform? “The margin for error has been you know always pretty close, and with the situation we have this year it’s the margin for error’s even thinner,” he explained, “And so we’ve gotta fight through that and I am still encouraged for the future, but right now our future is, you know, we’ve got two big games left and a highly ranked team coming in and we’ve gotta win one of them to get in a bowl game.”

Rodriguez had thoughts on 5-7 teams to make bowl games and the remaining regular season games, “Our thought is to win them both, and they are two huge games. You know I’d like to be 7-5 and have a guaranteed winning record for our seniors.”

As far as Scooby, Rodriguez said that he’s a hard worker, and he’s working in the weight room. The focus is to get him healthy and right now he’s not there. He will fill out NFL paperwork in a few weeks to see where he is evaluated, so see how high he would be projected to go in the draft. The coaches will work to get all the facts to the players and the parents, and they hope they make the best decision for themselves.

Sep 3, 2015; Tucson, AZ, USA; Arizona Wildcats linebacker Scooby Wright III (33) adjusts his helmet during the first quarter against the Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners at Arizona Stadium. Arizona won 42-32. Mandatory Credit: Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports

So, the team has goals, the coaches, and the team has not given up, and they are going in expecting to play a perfect football fame to win one or both of the next two games. Coach Rich Rod also feels his team is rested even though they played tired in the last game. This should be great news for Wildcats fans.

Pac-12 Notes:

Junior QB Anu Solomon completed 31-of-46 for 352 yards and 3 TDs in the loss at USC. Solomon moves into fifth place on UA’s all-time career touchdown passes list with 44. He’s now one away from matching Bruce Hill (45, 1973-75) for fourth on the list. His 352 passing yards gives him 5,776 for his career, which moves him up two spots to No. 6 on UA’s all-time passing list. Keith Smith is fifth on the list with 5,972 career passing yards.

Senior WR David Richards hauled in a career-high nine balls for 86 yards and now has 105 receptions in his career. He’s the fourth different UA receiver to reach 100 or more career receptions this season (Cayleb Jones – 114, Nate Phillips – 112, Samajie Grant – 119). All four guys have each accumulated over 1,000 career receiving yards as well.

Records: No. 10 Utah (8-1, 5-1, 3-1 on the road) vs. Arizona (5-5, 2-5, 3-2 at home) Utah Favored by -6 (MGM)

Series: UTAH leads, 20-18-2. Last: ARIZ, 42-10 (2014)

Last game: Utah beat Washington 34-23, and Arizona lost to USC 38-30

Date: Saturday, Nov. 14 – Last home game; Senior Night

Game Time: 7:00 p.m. PST and 8:00 p.m. MST (AZ), TV – Fox Sports 1, Radio – TuneIn, Arizona IMG Sports Network

Location: Tucson Arizona

Hashtag: # UTAHvsAZ

Pre-Game Notes:

Arizona Injuries:

Upshot: The Utah Utes are playing not to lose, and the Arizona Wildcats are fighting for their lives. It’s senior night, and their last game at home, so the emotions will be running high. Coach Rich Rodriguez is starting to talk about his seniors and seems to be using this as a theme, ‘for our seniors.’ The focus for Arizona is getting one more win to get to a bowl game, and to help the seniors and juniors who aspire to enter the NFL Draft.

Knocking off the No. 10 team in the nation will not be easy but it will show the country that Arizona is not such a bad team after all. The Utes are firing on all cylinders, losing only once to USC, who the Wildcats could have beaten on Saturday if it wasn’t for the many penalties and lack of defense in the fourth quarter.

Utah does have its sites on the National Championship and can still win the Pac-12 South with two losses. They may also be used to losing to Arizona. USC proved Utah is beatable, let’s hope the Wildcats can follow in their footsteps.

Prediction:

Arizona 34 Utah 31