Ooo, a little controversy in the TWIT-Pac….

Cal (5-2 / 2-2) at ASU (4-3 / 2-2) – 12:30 PM (all times Arizona/Pacific), ABC
The Bears went from six points in two games to 94 points in two games. It helps to start playing the bad teams.

Who do we root for?
ASU. Hold on…. OK, now that my head didn’t explode I can explain. Over the next three weeks the Devils play the three ranked Pac teams not named Arizona. If ASU could somehow pull an upset along the way it would help us move up the standings, even if cheering for them makes us ill.

UCLA (3-4 / 0-4) at OSU (4-3 / 2-2) – 1 PM
The Bruins seemed like a lock for bowl eligibility in September. Since then they’ve lost their keys.

Who do we root for?
UCLA. Same rationale as above. The Beavers are still in contention for a solid bowl game.

WSU (1-6 / 0-5) at Notre Dame (5-2) – 4:30 PM, NBC
This game is in San Antonio. That’s a long way to go to lose.

Who do we root for?
ND. I would be 100% pulling for the Cougars…if they didn’t play the Wildcats next week. We don’t need them going to the Alamo and remembering how to play winning football.

USC (6-1 / 3-1) at Oregon (6-1 / 4-0) – 5 PM, ABC
The Ducks took Game of the Year status from Cal early on. Are they ready to live up to it?

Who do we root for?
The University of Oregon.

Let me save you the effort of writing your venomous comment:

Hey, IDIOT! We want SECOND PLACE to beat FIRST PLACE so we can be in FIRST PLACE!!!!!!11

I get the math. I know logic says when your team has one loss you want the other 3-1 team to beat the 4-0 team so you can all be tied in the loss column. But that isn’t just any 3-1 team.

Make no mistake; Southern California is the best team in the conference until they are eliminated from the Rose Bowl race. I want them to lose as early and as often as possible.

I know this isn’t a popular opinion. There is a real good argument for wanting USC to win this week in that it allows for the possibility of Arizona winning the championship with two conference losses.

The problem is there’s no plausible scenario that gets the Cats to the Promised Land without beating USC in L.A. on December 5. After leaving Eugene the Trojans play at ASU, then finish with consecutive home games against Stanford, UCLA and Arizona.

The bottom line is this: If USC goes into Autzen and beats the Ducks they aren’t going to lose again.

Last year the Trojans lost their third game of the year, on the road, in their Pac-10 opener, the week after beating Ohio State. That was their final loss. This year’s defeat came under the exact same circumstances. My fear is they’re working on a sequel.

Would you rather face a 9-1 Chip Kelly team at home, or a 10-1 Pete Carroll team on the road? I want nothing to do with USC when there’s BCS-championship-game blood in the water.

Bonus reason to want a Duck victory: A 10-2 Oregon could easily get passed over for an at-large BCS bowl bid. A 10-2 USC team would not. The Pac-10 stands to make more money this year with USC as the #2 team.

Of course, the dream of all dream scenarios is Oregon beating USC then losing at Stanford the following week. That way if the Cats beat WSU we go into the Cal game tied for first, with USC in third.

I want USC’s national championship dreams to end. I want the Trojans to lose their biggest carrot. I want Carroll to have to answer questions about why his team “failed” again this year.

I know there’s a ton of football to be played. I realize Cal could drop an atom bomb on our postseason dreams. But we’re not playing Cal this week. We’re not even playing Washington State this week. Arizona can’t lose on Saturday so our dreams can’t die, and I’m going to root for the result that best helps those dreams along.

Go Ducks.

I was eating some whole wheat crackers at lunch and the box said: “May help reduce the risk of heart disease.” Really? It’s legal to brag about what your product might do? Alright then….

Reading about UA sports may help make you smarter, funnier and downright irresistible.

There. If you find yourself getting some extra attention from your Person of Significance today you’ll know who to thank.

On to the bonus thoughts from the UCLA game!

I appreciated the Wildcats’ ferocious strategy. On Arizona’s third play from scrimmage Delashaun Dean took the handoff, ran toward the UCLA sideline, went out of bounds and “accidentally” dismantled the Bruins’ hydration station. I believe that’s straight out of “The Art of War.”

The official attendance was 53,000 for Stanford and 51,000 for UCLA. Even if that’s true (and the wide shots of the east side stands weren’t pretty) how do you get fewer people after that Stanford game? Too much excitement? Too many wins? Come on, Tucson. Let’s go ahead and wait until the team loses again before we find something better to do on Saturdays.

Seventeen of Nick Foles’ 20 first-half passes were caught. It just so happens that three of them were snagged by the wrong team.

Chuck Cecil! Anyone who gets tired of that replay immediately gets his CatCard revoked.

Averted Turning Point I: After the Cats fumbled on their first snap of the second half UCLA set up shop on the UA 17 in a 10-point game. The defense forced two incomplete passes (including the one that should have been called a lateral/fumble) and successfully defended a screen to keep UCLA out of the end zone. Well done, D.

Keola’s top helmet straps stick out like antennae. Perfect for the Ant.

For the second straight game Matt Scott came in for one play and, just like last time, it was an inaccurate attempt at a WR screen. Are we trying to set something up for later in the year, or is this just to make sure we don’t take Foles for granted?

Watching the replay I noticed Fox Sports Arizona missed a play due to being late coming back from commercials a handful of times. With one fewer down to work with, those of you viewing live must have thought you watching Canadian football.

It’s true, there is someone on campus who can kick the ball into the end zone. Actually, he was already on the team; he just doesn’t have a scholarship. During the bye week you have to see what John Bonano can do as a placekicker, right?

You know how when people talk about needing a touchdown they say, “We gotta get six”? Arizona fans say that because it’s probably all we’re going to end up with.

The Cats had five turnovers against UCLA. We had five in the previous four games combined. I would like to order the offense from OSU/UW/Stanford and the defense from CMU/UCLA. To go.

Averted Turning Point II: After UCLA scored on the lateral/fumble (and I’m fine with the call. It was too close to overturn the ruling on the field) to cut the lead to 20-13, Arizona faced a third and 11 from its own 36. We ran an inside receiver screen to Terrell Turner and he cut it upfield nicely for 17 yards and a first down. The drive ended with Booth’s touchdown and the Bruins never threatened again.

From a wild final quarter filled with big plays, fourth-down drama and two long UA touchdowns, to a placid fourth quarter with zero combined points. Maybe that will whip the ticket-buying public into a frenzy.

Your Arizona Wildcats are now ranked in every poll. Is it because of our sterling record? No, 5-2 isn’t earth-shattering. Was it due to an impossible-to-ignore victory? Nah, UCLA is winless in conference play. So what changed? I guarantee the voters saw the UA listed among the BCS Top 25 all week and thought, “Wait, Arizona is ranked? I didn’t vote for them. I’ll have to change that so I don’t look like an idiot.” Sometimes peer pressure is a good thing.

Enjoy the bye week and soak in those rankings. Sometimes no pressure is a great thing.

Don’t you dare complain about this game.

“The Cats should’ve won by 30,” you say. I don’t want to hear it. “Should’ve won by more” is far superior to “Should’ve won.” You know what they say:

‘Tis better to have stunk and won
Than never to have won at all.

We knew the letdown was coming. If you have been following this program for any length of time you can rattle off countless examples of games where the Cats played down to the level of their completion. The same was true this weekend. But something strange happened.

The Wildcats won anyway.

The game script was looking straight out of our Arizona Football nightmares. When you play a team with a bad offense there are three things you want to avoid: Turning the ball over, giving the other team a short field, and yielding defensive or special teams touchdowns. We suffered through the ugly trifecta…and still won by two touchdowns.

The secret to Arizona’s success the last couple weeks has been the equivalent of keeping the president and vice-president on separate planes. As long as only one goes down in flames the country survives.

One-ply defense against Stanford? Don’t worry, we’ve got 43 points waiting. Butterfinger O versus the Bruins? Fear not, we’ll shut the UCLA offense out of the end zone.

I don’t care how bad UCLA’s quarterback was (or their next one, or the one after that). It was good to see the Cat defense looking fast again. I loved the caboose blitz where Cam Nelson followed Xavier Kelley through the same hole and leveled the quarterback. (I have no idea what it’s really called but doesn’t using cryptic lingo make it sound like I know what I’m talking about?)

Uniform fun fact of the week: Arizona is 3-0 when wearing red jerseys and blue pants against UCLA and 1-3 when wearing them against anyone else.

Uniform unfun fact of the week: Every time Arizona wears red Nick Foles throws three interceptions in the first half.

So there goes the Heisman. You figured Foles would come back to earth at some point and he did it with style. Nick had a direct hand in all five turnovers (although Nwoko was officially credited with the one fumble) that led to all 13 of UCLA’s points. But if a horrible game still looks like completing 65% of your passes and throwing two TDs, you’ve got to be excited about the future.

Bad: Nic Grigsby running to avoid contact and re-aggravating his shoulder injury anyway. Good: Keola Antolin getting 17 touches and looking sharp.

Speaking of looking sharp, Foles and Antolin might just be the hairiest backfield in the nation. Put in Taimi Tutogi at fullback and we could get Paul Mitchell as a game sponsor.

As we head into our second and final bye week the name of the game is health. They say you can’t overlook anybody in college football but for the next two weeks I hope Arizona does just that. The Cats have to do just that. Instead of spending two weeks preparing for Washington State I hope we spend three weeks preparing for Cal.

What I mean is nobody on the injury report should play against WSU. Start Nick Booth at tailback. Play the second-string defensive line. Go deep down the O-line depth chart. It’s worth gambling that Wazzu is indeed that bad in order to give the Wildcats the best possible chance to beat the California Golden Bears on November 14.

One could argue it was good that the Arizona offense played poorly this week. The inevitable letdown game is out of the way and the coaches now have plenty of things with which to get the players’ attention during the time off. It’s not like the team is going to spend the next two weeks hearing how great they are.

Offense: Five turnovers, huh?
Defense: I think Stanford just scored again.
Special Teams: THREE missed extra points?!

But you aren’t going to hear me complaining. Yes, I was just as frustrated and nervous as you during the game (Fall on the ball, Terrell!!!) but now that the dust has settled and win #5 is in the books I’m more than satisfied with the big picture.

The Cats are guaranteed to spend the next two weeks in the Top 25. Our next game is against the worst team in the league. All the big dreams are still out there. This was a great weekend for Arizona Football and no one can convince me otherwise.

I can even wait on that Heisman Trophy.

It’s time to find out which teams have made the best half-season adjustments.

Before we get to the roots it’s a good time to take a look at the Pac-10 bowl picture. Every team but WSU has at least three wins. Seven teams have at least four wins. Apparently there are no volunteers for eighth and ninth place.

With 5-1 records USC and Oregon are locks to make the postseason. So unless one goes 11-1 and the other goes 10-2 and both make BCS bowls, we’re left with four Pac-10 bowl slots for seven teams. Because of the big bunch in the middle it’s becoming clear that six wins isn’t going to cut it this year. Post a winning record or go home.

Cal has both USC and Oregon behind them so their schedule eases up considerably. OSU has UCLA and UW at home plus their WSU game. Stanford has four more home games. The Bears, Beavers and Cardinal seem to be good bets to get to seven wins.

And Arizona? We’ll find out soon enough. On to TWIT-Pac!

Oregon (5-1 / 3-0) at Washington (3-4 / 2-2) – 12:30 PM (all times Arizona/Pacific), ABC
Washington has proven to be tough at home and the Ducks have a certain Trojan team coming to town next week. Uh-oh…

Who do we root for?
UW. If you want to be the best you have to beat the best, or have someone else beat the best for you.

WSU (1-5 / 0-4) at Cal (4-2 / 1-2) – 1:30 PM
Jahvid Best had a 93-yard run last week. The Cougars may find a way to give up a 110-yarder this week.

Who do we root for?
WSU. Just because.

UCLA (3-3 / 0-3) at ARIZONA (4-2 / 2-1) – 3:30 PM, FSNAZ
The Cats are coming off a big win and the Bruins are sliding, which is precisely why I’m nervous about this game.

Who do we root for?
Your Top-25 Wildcats. More on this game in a bit.

OSU (4-2 / 2-1) at USC (5-1 / 2-1) – 5 PM, ABC
The Beavers pulled off the upset last year but they’ll find the going a wee bit tougher in L.A.

Who do we root for?
OSU. I don’t care who’s undefeated. The Trojans are the team to beat in this league until they get beat again.

ASU (4-2 / 2-1) at Stanford (4-3 / 3-2) – 7:15 PM, FSN
Both teams had a chance at buzzer-beater wins last week. The Devils made their shot while the Cardinal hopes to rebound.

Who do we root for?
Stanford. ASU knocked off a bowl contender last year. They can go back to losing now.

As you can see, the above assumes the Cats are going to stay in the conference race a bit longer. Again, if you think the UA is a lot closer to sixth place than first place, that’s fine. If you just want to focus on securing a bowl bid and nothing else, root for Oregon and USC to knock a couple bowl wannabes a step closer to elimination. I know that high hopes and Arizona Football don’t usually mix.

But I’m going to mix them, at least for now. Just for fun, here are the only teams that still control their own destiny for the Rose Bowl: Oregon, USC and…Arizona.

That means we have to beat UCLA.

A thrilling comeback win, a national ranking, a Player of the Week award and national recognition for our quarterback. Things seem to be going pretty well for the Wildcats, don’t they?

That’s when longtime Cat fans get anxious. Even if your UA fandom only covers the Mike Stoops era you know that a loss can pop up from anywhere, any time. The Cats have lost to a four-win team each of the last two years. A .500 UCLA squad has no reason to be intimidated.

When you get to your seat on Saturday, buckle up. Prepare for a close game. Expect points to be harder to come by. Remember, the Bruins played Oregon to a 3-0 halftime lead just two weeks ago.

It could come down to which unit stinks less, the UCLA offense or the UA defense. Can the Cats avoid giving up the big plays that have plagued them in recent weeks? Can the Bruins score more than two touchdowns for the first time in Pac-10 play?

Arizona fans are still trying to figure out if this team is any good. We can’t get a Yes for a few more weeks, but we can get a big fat No this weekend.

Are we ready? Is this the week our program finally builds some sustainable momentum?

Maybe.

Sometimes a game leaves you with a lot of thoughts but not enough mental capacity with which to organize them. This was one of those games.

I figured we were going to see Nick Foles in red for the first time but the team chose to attack the Cardinal in blue-on-blue uniforms. It turned out to be the right call as the Cats have now won eight straight games while wearing blue jerseys. Truth. Everyone loves the red but we haven’t lost wearing blue shirts since the Oregon State home loss three years ago. Somebody alert the team’s fashion consultants.

The best part about Robert Golden’s touchdown wasn’t the interception, it was the fact that he eluded Andrew Luck on the return. When you pick off a short throw near the sideline the quarterback is the only guy who can stop you from scoring. If you don’t have room to get around him you need to slow up and let one of your blockers catch up and flatten him.

In the Texas/Oklahoma game we saw what often happens. Late in the game a Sooner defensive back got too excited after a pick and let Colt McCoy bring him down while a wall of would-be blockers trailed a step behind. Sure enough, Mike Stoops’ brother’s team failed to score on that possession and ended up losing by a mere three points. The cardinal rules of returns: Don’t let the punter push you out of bounds, and never get tackled by the quarterback.

Is it considered nepotism when you throw two touchdown passes to your roommate? David “Roomie” Douglas’ 43-yard catch-and-run was the longest touchdown reception of the year thus far. I’d pay his half of the cable bill this month.

After the red zone struggles against Washington it was a relief to see the Cats score before they got inside the 20…but then Zendejas’ extra point attempt was blocked. Even when we score a touchdown it turns into two field goals.

I love the new offensive package with Antolin in the backfield and Grigsby split out wide. It allowed us to run the end-around with a real running threat and I’m sure we’ll throw it out to Nic for the quick screen a time or two as the year goes on.

Speaking of our battered backs, Keola and Grigs combined for 129 yards on 15 touches against Stanford. Imagine if they were both healthy.

Speaking of only 15 touches, that brings us to this week’s…

Things Nobody Else Does
-Go from a running team to a Run ‘N’ Shoot team in three weeks
In the first three games the UA averaged 39 rushing attempts a game and our starting quarterback completed an average of just 12 completions a contest. The Foles Era has seen the ball go in the air 46 times a game and in the Stanford game we called a whopping 11 running plays. Somewhere Mouse Davis is smiling.

What on earth was that long inflated flesh-colored thing the Zona Zoo was bouncing around? Let’s just say it didn’t seem very Family-Weekend-friendly.

With his team down nine and Stanford seemingly about to put the game away, Mike Stoops busted out the gather-the-entire-team-on-the-field-during-a-timeout routine before the fourth quarter. That never works…except when you hold your opponent scoreless the rest of way and you score two long touchdowns to steal the game.

UCLA comes to town this week and it’s a huge game no matter what your expectations are for this team. Because of the way the schedule lays out the eight-game roadmap is the same for a 7-5 season, a 10-2 season, and everything in between. The Wildcats have to get to 6-2 which means they needs win #5 this week.

If you’re the kind that likes to worry you’ll be happy to know Arizona is 0-1 in letdown games this year. Oregon State could have been a momentum-building win but we all know what happened at Washington. Can the team use the euphoria of the Stanford victory as motivation instead of distraction?

We’ll have to wait and see. Or we can just wait and see what the team is wearing.