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Much-improved Arizona defense faces huge test at Oregon

Arizona will be without two of its defensive starters for the first half of Saturday’s Pac-12 opener at Oregon, as both defensive end Mo Diallo and safety Jaxen Turner must sit out the first 30 minutes after being ejected for targeting against NAU.

Is Don Brown worried? Doesn’t seem like it.

“Next guy’s got to step up and do his job,” Brown said Tuesday. “It’s really not that big a deal, because we’re dividing reps (in practice) with ones and twos almost 50-50. That’s how we go about that.”

While Arizona’s offense has sputtered through the first three games, struggling to block and unable to find the right quarterback to lead it, the UA defense has operated almost seamlessly despite regularly rotating different players.