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For the UA, it’s the finishing touches to a micro season.

“This is the end of the first quarter,â€� ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ head coach Jedd Fisch said, “and we have to win every quarter, and that’s what we talk about. If you wanna go 8-4, you have to win every quarter.

“If you wanna go better than 8-4, you gotta do better than just go 2-1. For us, we gotta win this quarter. Coach speak would say, ‘Every week, you’re trying to go 1-0,’ and that’s of course the case.�

The Wildcats (1-1) are expected to win the first quarter of the season. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ enters Saturday as 18-point favorites over UTEP (1-2), which recently lost to Northwestern 38-7 and fell to Jacksonville State and former UA head coach Rich Rodriguez 17-14. The Miners are 18-41 under sixth-year head coach Dana Dimel, a former UA offensive assistant during the Wildcats’ Mike Stoops era.

Although ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ is a heavy favorite, “We really need to focus in on this one,â€� Fisch said. “We really need to make sure we have our best game this year on Saturday night. That’s what I told our team it’s going to take. It’s going to take our best that we’ve played all year for four quarters.

“It’s going to take all three phases for us to have the outcome we want, and our goal is to go out there and play our best ball.�

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ has yet to play a complete game this season; that includes its 38-3 season-opening win over Northern ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥. The three points against NAU are the fewest the Wildcats surrendered in a nonconference game in a decade, but the UA committed 11 penalties — five personal fouls — and turned over the ball twice. Both were by ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ quarterback Jayden de Laura, who threw an interception and fumbled inside the red zone.

In the overtime loss to Mississippi State last Saturday, ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ had just five penalties, but de Laura tossed four more interceptions (three in the first quarter), bringing his season total to five, which is an FBS worst. De Laura led the Wildcats in rushing at MSU and finished the contest in Starkville with 342 passing yards for his 10th 300-yard game as a collegiate quarterback.

“Credit to Jayden for not putting his head down and stuff like that,â€� ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ running back Michael Wiley said. “We still believed that we could make something happen on offense.â€�

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s defense, after allowing 88 rushing yards in the first quarter, only allowed 57 combined through three quarters at Mississippi State. Among the changes ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ defensive coordinator Johnny Nansen made at MSU: installing linebacker Justin Flowe, who tied linebacker Jacob Manu with 12 tackles. With a helping hand — or nine — from the defensive line, Manu and Flowe combined for three tackles for loss, including one in the fourth quarter on third-and-3 that forced MSU to kick a go-ahead field goal; the Bulldogs were 4-for-13 on third- and fourth-down conversions.

“It was the second game of the year, so they came up with new plays that we haven’t seen,� Nansen said. “Once we adjusted to it and the guys saw it, we stopped it in the second half.�

If not for ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s defense, which has a blend of transfer portal defensive linemen linebackers coupled with steadily improving returners, the Wildcats could’ve faced a blowout loss to Mississippi State. But ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s defense “season stood up to the test and went punch-for-punchâ€� at Mississippi State.

“Our defense through the first two games have shown the value of getting bigger up front,� Fisch said. “You could see that the size of our defense has enabled us to put more pressure on the quarterback. We’ve held teams to under 200 yards passing.

“In two games, we’ve given up — in regulation — 27 points and that’s 13½ points a game in eight quarters,� Fisch added. “That’s good. That’s really, really good — 17 points per game when you count the overtime. Tackling is going to be at a premium this week.�

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s attention this week isn’t necessarily beating UTEP, but rather on avoiding beating themselves before entering a gauntlet of a Pac-12 schedule, which features seven teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 poll — all consecutively after next week’s conference opener at Stanford.

“Before you have to win, you have to keep from losing, and our goal this week is to take care of the ball, not have a lot of penalties,� Fisch said. “The first game, we had 11 penalties. The second game we had five turnovers. So we’re looking to have a clean game, disciplined.�

Fisch said the Wildcats “need to do simple better and find a way to put ourselves in position to compete.�

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ has plenty of room for error against UTEP, but Fisch is yearning for a turnover-free performance by his club with limited penalties. Against an inferior opponent, Saturday could be the game ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ cleans it up and ends the first quarter — err, nonconference schedule with a winning record.

“With this game, coming off of the type of loss that we had, we’re not settling for moral victories,� Fisch said. “This isn’t Year Zero any longer, where we were trying to compete for four quarters and see if we could stay healthy for four quarters. We went into Starkville expecting to win.

“We’re disappointed we didn’t and now it’s our responsibility this week to channel all of those frustrations and see how good we can be. We want to see how good we can be by 11:30 (p.m.) on Saturday evening.�