So it ends.

With loss number seven against Utah last Saturday the Arizona Wildcats football team will not be setting a school record by going to a fourth consecutive bowl game.

The UA’s run had been the third longest active streak in the Pac-12 (and second longest among the old Pac-10 schools). That honor now belongs to Stanford.

Here are the streaks for each program:

Pac-12 Bowl Streaks

Team	Longest	Years	Current
Utah	8	2003-’10	8
Oregon	7	1997-2003	6
Arizona	3	1992-’94, 2008-’10	3
Stanford	3	1933-’35	2
Washington	9	1979-’87	1
Colorado	9	1988-’96	0
UCLA	9	1980-’88	0
USC	9	2001-’09	0
Cal	7	2003-’09	0
ASU	4	1970-’73, 2004-’07	0
OSU	4	2006-’09	0
WSU	3	2001-’03	0

(This year is not included but USC’s vacated bowl is.)

Starting a new streak will be on the new Arizona coach’s to-do list.

* * *

Last week was horrible for the Wildcats on the field but there was some great news on the hot-seat/no-head-coaching-search-competition front.

Cal took care of business at home and then UCLA turned in the biggest Pac-12 upset of the season to date by taking down Arizona State. The best part is, I called it! OK, that’s not exactly what I said but I did tell you to root for it.

The cool-seat roadmap looks a lot better:

Team	Remaining Wins	Record	Upset?
UCLA	at Utah, Colo	7-5	Done.
Cal	OSU	6-6	at ASU
WSU	Utah	4-8	at Wash
OSU	none	2-10	Wash

How do we get the Bruins into the Pac-12 Championship Game to ensure Rick Neuheisel gets another year? I don’t think they’ll win out with two road games left including USC but they can still get in if they go 2-1 down the stretch and ASU loses one more time.

If only there was a team with a lot of incentive to beat the Sun Devils, maybe someone like a 112-year rival…

* * *

All the four-win teams became five-win teams so the Pac-12 bowl bubble has just about popped:

The conference is just three more wins (and one national championship game snub) away from filling all seven of its bowl slots even with USC ineligible. If Stanford and Oregon both make BCS bowls and Washington State (3-6) loses one more time the New Mexico Bowl is going to have to go team shopping somewhere else.

* * *

Nick Foles, if it’s any consolation, John Elway didn’t win a bowl game either.

The Wildcat quarterback’s assault on the Pac-12 record book was slowed after his worst statistical performance of the year. Here are the current projections:

Pac-12 Records	Who, When	What	Nick Foles, 2011
Total Offense	Cody Pickett, Wash, 2002	4,273	4,204 (pace)
Total Offense per Game	Ryan Leaf, WSU, 1997	325.7	350.3
Passing Yards	Cody Pickett, Wash, 2002	4,458	4,346 (pace)
Passing Yards per Game	Cody Pickett, Wash, 2002	342.9	362.2
Completions	Willie Tuitama, Ariz, 2007	327	378 (pace)
Completion Percentage	Rich Campbell, Cal, 1980	70.7	68.8
Completion %, Career	Matt Leinart, USC, 2002-05	64.8	66.5

Everything on there is still within reach but he’s got some ground to make up. Tim Kish and Seth Littrell, if you’re out there and you happen to find yourself with a lead in Boulder, please let Foles continue to throw it around. Matt Barkley had six touchdown passes against the Buffs, for crying out loud. Besides, how often do you get a chance to knock Matt Leinart down?

(Nobody on the Houston Texans practice squad answer that.)

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Scott Terrell does enjoy html tables. Take a [br] on Twitter and Facebook.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 9th, 2011 at 12:57 AM and is filed under Sports. Tags for this post: bowl bubble, bowls, Football, hot seat, Nick Foles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.