Predicting the Final Score of Colorado vs. Arizona

The No. 19 ranked Arizona Wildcats return home after a brutal road loss against the UCLA Bruins to play the Pac-12 South bottom-dwelling Colorado Buffaloes Saturday night in the 100th anniversary of Arizona’s homecoming.

The Wildcats (6-2, 3-2 in Pac-12 South) couldn’t of returned home at a better time. After averaging 40.6 points a game in their first seven games of the season, the Wildcats could only muster seven points against a rejuvenated Bruins defense last week in a 17-7 defeat. Anu Solomon, the freshman quarterback for the Wildcats who is 10th in the nation in passing yards and captain of a team that averages 506 yards per game, was held to 175 passing yards and threw for only one touchdown and one interception while completing just 37.5 percent of his passes.

The Wildcats won’t have the same problems against the porous Buffaloes defense, which allows 38.7 points per game and is ranked dead last in the conference in allowing 197.3 yards per game on the ground. Arizona features a two-headed monster at running back, as Nick Wilson and Terris Jones-Grigsby have combined for 190 carries for 1,066 yards and 10 touchdowns out of the backfield and should be able to gash the Buffaloes’ defense at will.

While the Wildcats will look to control the game by pounding the rock against Colorado’s defense, the Buffaloes will put the ball in the hand of quarterback Sefo Liufau and let it fly. Liufau is 11th in the nation in passing with 2,590 passing yards and is tied for fourth with 25 passing touchdowns to offset his 12 interceptions. The Wildcats feature the third worst passing defense in the conference, allowing 293.2 passing yards per game and allowing a conference-worst 66.6 completion percentage against them.

While these teams feature young difference makers on the offensive side of the ball, the biggest star in the game and the x-factor for the Wildcats could be linebacker Scooby Wright. Wright is coming off a monster game against UCLA that saw him notch 19 tackles, three sacks and 4.5 tackles for loss — a performance that made him the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week for the second week in a row and earned him a spot as a semifinalist for the Bednarik Award, given each year to the top defensive player in the FBS. Wright is sixth in the nation with 97 tackles and tied for second with 12 sacks and should be able to keep the pressure on Liufau.

With Wright headlining a defense that has a +8 turnover edge over Colorado, the Wildcats should return to their high-scoring ways and should easily dispatch the Buffaloes by a score of 49-28.

Phillip Jacques is a Pac-12 Football writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.