It's never a good sign when 82% turns into 30%.
Photo by Wildcat Sports Report

The Arizona Wildcats basketball team will try to bounce back after only posting half a good weekend in Oregon. How did the rest of the conference do and what are they about to do?

Get your Pac-10 basketball TV schedule here, and final notes from the Alamo Bowl (I promise).

Thu. Jan. 6
(all times Arizona/Mountain)

Sat. Jan. 8

Sun. Jan. 9

Thu. Jan. 6
Stanford (8-4 / 1-0) at ASU (8-5 / 1-1)
The good news: ASU is 5-0 when they score at least 63 points. The bad news: They Devils have only scored 63 points five times.

Oregon (7-7 / 0-2) at Washington (10-3 / 2-0)
Stat whiz Ken Pomeroy says the Huskies now have a 91% chance of winning the Pac-10. Could he be more specific?

OSU (7-6 / 2-0) at WSU (10-4 / 0-2)
The 5-6 team pulls off a sweep to start conference play while the 10-2 team gets swept. This might be why all those birds died.

Cal (7-6 / 0-1) at ARIZONA (12-3 / 1-1)
The Cats need both games this weekend to protect their tournament resume. Bubble talk on Epiphany Eve? That’s what happens when you lose to the team with the worst RPI in the league.

Sat. Jan. 8
Cal at ASU
The race for 8th place starts now.

Stanford at ARIZONA
The UA needs to be careful: Stanford only lost to Oklahoma State by 11.

OSU at Washington
It’s a battle for 1st place! If the Beavers win watch out for falling birds.

Oregon at WSU
This weekend will be the Cougars’ first home games since Dec. 10. Look for Klay Thompson and company to blow off some steam.

Sun. Jan. 9
UCLA at USC
The Bruins on the other hand have only played one road game all year. Look for some steam to be blown on them.

- – -

Cleaning out the notebook from San Antonio, then we will remember this game no longer.

The college football world has conspired to make Arizona look as bad as possible. Iowa proved that a 7-5 team can beat a 10-2 Big 12 team. Stanford proved, if you’re good enough, missing two extra points doesn’t matter. Washington, who lost to the Cats by 30, played the team that beat the Cats by 33 (and the Huskies by 35), and won. The only way the Sun Devils could be enjoying this bowl season more would be if they were playing in it.

Mike Stoops won his first Territorial Cup game then lost three straight. He won his first bowl game and has since been dominated twice. Stoops has first impressions down but needs to work on his seconds and thirds.

The Wildcats are now 6-9-1 all time in bowls and 6-6-1 in the Pac-10 era.

Arizona’s best pro quarterback prospect in a long time (ever?) is now only 11-10 as a starter. He was 5-6 this year. The chance to play well in a bowl game and win it should give Nick Foles extra incentive to return in 2011.

The big mistakes in the Alamo Bowl looked even worse on TV – the Bug flub, Criner’s 4th down drop, the blown coverage on Blackmon, Wilcox whiffing on the TD-after-INT. And that was just the 1st quarter.

Speaking of TV, they had all the lowlights from the ASU game queued up and ready to go, didn’t they?

Bowl practice is a great time to install new wrinkles on offense. The Cats’ two surprises were a shovel pass (4 yards) and a flea flicker (sack). Robert Anae, come on down!

And we went a very long way to see it all. Going to these games doesn’t make you a better fan than the people who don’t have the means to go, but it does put you in some kind of twisted club. There should be a secret handshake for anyone who sat through both the Holiday Bowl and the Alamo Bowl. You get VTP (Very Tortured Person) status if you also had season tickets during the 2003 season.

I did enjoy spending the day in San Antonio. Is there any way we could get a river to run through downtown Tucson? How about an Arroyo Walk?

The best part of the history surrounding the Alamo: The “Come and Take It” flag.

We almost surrendered on the drive home. Dust and high winds in west Texas, rain in El Paso and snow in New Mexico. As the miles turn into hours and the hours turn into “What day is this?!” you have to remind yourself of the benefits of driving:

-Take whatever you want.
Your nail clippers will not be confiscated as a weapon.

-No TSA groping.
The Border Patrol guys keep their hands to themselves.

-All you can eat.
If you want three pounds of honey roasted peanuts, you get three pounds of honey roasted peanuts.

-Rest stops.
Picnic tables decorated with wagon wheels, fake teepees, The Thing? I-10 has it all.

-Cheap, cheap, cheap.
If you’ve got more time than money you can pull it off. In 2008 I thought I could go to any Pac-10 bowl except the Emerald because it was too far to drive. Well, Tucson to San Antonio is 869 miles while Tucson to San Francisco is a mere 867 miles. Bring on the Fight Hunger Bowl!

It’s not glamorous but at least you get the secret handshake.

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Scott Terrell does not advise eating three pounds of honey roasted peanuts. Get more health tips on Facebook and Twitter.)

Look at the clock, coach. THE CLOCK!
Photo by Matt Strasen/US Presswire

It was as if the Arizona Wildcats were following the same bad script.

Last year’s Holiday Bowl went like this: early turnover, quick deficit, game over. Never a lead, no tie after 0-0, no contest in the second half.

The 2010 Alamo Bowl was the same story.

Add in the rest of the five-game slide to end the season and it begs the question: Has Mike Stoops lost his will to fight?

You’re going to get dominated from time to time. Sometimes in big bowl games. Sometimes two years in a row. But it’s never acceptable to stop fighting, and there was a play at the end of each half in San Antonio that looked alarmingly like the Wildcats giving up.

The final seconds of the 2nd quarter ticked away with Arizona in Oklahoma State territory with timeouts to spare. Stoops said he let the clock expire because he thought the previous play was 4th down. That doesn’t make any sense. If you think it’s 4th-and-25, you punt. You certainly don’t let your offensive coordinator call a running play with the clock stopping on a change of possession. You know OSU would’ve used all of its timeouts to try and tack on one more score.

Did Stoops simply lose track of the clock (both before and after the draw play) or did he mentally check out after the offensive pass interference call?

The white flag was definitely being waved early in the 4th quarter. Trailing by 23, Nick Foles was sacked to set up a 3rd-and-16 at the OSU 20. The Cats called a running play and attempted a field goal (which, naturally, was missed).

Three points do nothing when you’re down three touchdowns either way. It was an interesting contrast to the end of the Nebraska game last year. Passing up a field goal to go for six on 4th-and-3 was, on a small scale, noble. The message was, “If we’re going to get points tonight it’s going to be by winning this play and crossing the goal line.”

Against the Cowboys it was the opposite. The message appeared to be, “We have no chance so we may as well try and make the thrashing a little less severe.”

Arizona wasn’t going to complete a Hail Mary pass before halftime. The Cats weren’t going to rattle off 24 straight points in the final 10 minutes. But Mike Stoops could have shown his players and the ticket-buying public he was going to fire every last bullet.

Especially in a game named after the Alamo.

Bowl games are a season unto themselves so you don’t want to read too much into one evening of football against a record-setting team. But the evidence is growing that Stoops isn’t fueled by the same bravado that carried him to Tucson seven years ago.

In November Stoops was asked to compare the situation at Arizona to the facilities mega-upgrades that have led to Oregon’s recent success. He said, “I can’t erase 125 years of not going to the Rose Bowl. As much pressure as I can put on myself, I can’t take all that responsibility. It can’t be just all bad playing and all coaching.”

It sounds like a young coach who is becoming an old coach who is realizing the mountain he chose to climb is steeper than originally anticipated.

Did you know that Stoops is two seasons away from owning the third longest coaching tenure in Arizona football history? Pop McKale ran the UA program for 16 years and Dick Tomey was here for 14. Miles Casteel and Jim LaRue each piloted the Wildcats for eight years and Larry Smith was in charge for seven. This isn’t a rookie coach any more.

There’s no way Stoops thought he would be 7-6 in Year 7 while still carrying a career losing record. And it certainly isn’t helping the ego to have back-to-back bowl losses to teams from his old conference.

Stoops got it exactly right in his quote. His mission is to erase 32 years of Pac-10 play with no trips to the Rose Bowl, and 74 years of football without an outright conference championship.

Does he still accept this mission? Does Mike Stoops still believe you can win a championship at Arizona?

Does he still believe that he can win a championship?

It wouldn’t be right to give up on Stoops after a step backwards that isn’t even his first step backwards. After going 6-6 and 5-7 in 2006 and 2007 the Wildcats were able to bounce back with the consecutive eight-win season. Stocks sometimes dip before moving up and to the right.

How much fight is left in the Arizona coach? The upcoming offseason will be very telling. Is Stoops willing to battle for the quality assistant coaches he needs? Is he ready to do everything possible to help raise the money for the facilities he desperately craves?

I’m not ready to say 2011 is “win or else.” The major question marks on both lines mean another round of patience is needed. But by the end of 2012 we’ll know if Stoops is back to moving up the mountain or if he’s sliding off the mesa.

I’m rooting for him. Mike Stoops took a chance on Arizona when it was at the bottom of the Pac-10. He came here to try and do something that has never been done before. He deserves a chance to turn things around, or make one final stand.

Just don’t save any of those bullets, coach.

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Scott Terrell survived the drive to San Antonio and back. Send him your trip report via Facebook and Twitter!

UA optimism flew the coop a while ago.
Photo by Chris Morrison/US Presswire

This is the biggest bowl game of Mike Stoops’ career.

Was that dramatic enough for you?

The thing is…it’s true.

The 2008 Vegas Bowl was a celebration. The Arizona Wildcats’ decade-long bowl drought was over. A three-year losing streak to ASU had ended. Wildcat Universe would’ve quickly gotten over a loss to a strong BYU team.

Last year’s Holiday Bowl was dessert on an already-tasty cake. The 2009 season was a success. Finishing tied for 2nd with a new starting quarterback posting road wins against USC and ASU gave UA fans every reason to be optimistic about 2010 no matter what happened in San Diego.

This year? Optimism skipped town a couple months ago.

It’s easy to argue the season is already a major disappointment and the bowl game doesn’t matter. Losing conference record. Three home losses. The two biggest blowout Pac-10 losses in four years. An I-can’t-believe-what-I-just-saw loss in the Territorial Cup game.

One win over a Big 12 team doesn’t erase five Pac-10 losses, but it would help a lot. Think of it this way: If Arizona wins its home games and goes 10-2 where do the Wildcats play? The Alamo Bowl. So even if the journey up to this point has been a bunch of valleys the Cats can still finish on a peak.

Now the question is: How?

It’s one thing to say this is a huge game, or go so far as to stomp your feet and call it “must-win” but that doesn’t change the fact that the UA is a sizable underdog.

The main reason (besides Arizona having 2.5 times the losses of Oklahoma State) is the Cowboys lead the nation in total offense. Let me repeat that: THIS OFFENSE IS BETTER THAN OREGON’S.

Receiver Justin Blackmon had at least 100 yards and a touchdown in every game he played. Running back Kendall Hunter has two 1,500-yard seasons. Quarterback Brandon Weeden has more touchdowns than his age, and he’s 27 years old!

In order for Arizona to compete in this game – at the absolute minimum – Nick Foles has to be incredible. We’re talking something in the neighborhood of 400 passing yards and four touchdowns.

There was more than enough blame to go around against Nebraska last year but Foles set the tone with his horrible throw on the opening series. Facing 3rd-and-10 he badly underthrew a fade that resulted in an easy interception which led to an easy touchdown which led to a long wet night for the Wildcat faithful. The QB from Texas needs to start fast, finish fast and be very fast in between.

Everyone else on the UA side needs to make the plays that present themselves. If the ball hits Terrence Miller’s hands down the middle of the field he needs to catch it. If the ball lands in Joe Perkins’ arms he needs to grab it. If somebody gets a shot at Weeden he needs to bring him down on first contact.

That’s how the Cats hung with Oregon for most of three quarters: playing boldly, making big hits and forcing turnovers.

The goal is to get to the end of the game with the ball in Nick Foles’ hands with a chance to win.

Just make sure you’re only down five this time.

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With the unveiling of this year’s bowl uniforms it appears as if Mike Stoops stumbled across last year’s advice. Blue-on-blue-on-white gives Arizona the best chance to win. The numbers don’t lie:

Arizona’s record under Mike Stoops…by color

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Can’t make it to the Alamo Bowl? Ride shotgun here for all 1,736 miles from Tucson to San Antonio and back.

That’s right: shotgun. The cheap-seats lifestyle includes the open road, sleeping on couches, and tickets closer to the top of the dome than the field.

But we wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Scott Terrell probably doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into. Get updates from mile after glorious mile on Twitter.

Arizona's rodeo with the high-flying Cowboys is fast approaching.
Photo by Brendan Maloney/US Presswire

College football is back!

After six long, hard days there will be 35 bowl games in 24 days, and the first three are on Saturday.

You’re not going to watch all of them (unless you want to end up with Lou Holtz and Mark May as your only friends) so TWIT-Pac’s winter cousin is here with a look at the games with direct ties to the Arizona Wildcats and the Pac-10.

Pace yourselves, my friends.

(All times Arizona/Mountain and all listed games on ESPN and ESPN3.com.)

Las Vegas Bowl
#10 Boise State (11-1) vs. #19 Utah (10-2) – Wed. Dec. 22, 6 p.m.
1) We still abide by the No Corporate Sponsor Names rule.
2) The Pac-10 only has four bowl teams this year so we’re expanding things to include the Pac-12.
3) The only thing that made the people of Vegas happier than landing Boise State was being able to invite someone other than BYU for the first time in six years.

Alamo Bowl
#14 Oklahoma State (10-2) vs. ARIZONA (7-5) – Wed. Dec. 29, 7:15 p.m.
The Wildcats lost two assistant coaches to Colorado. OSU’s offensive coordinator was just named West Virginia’s head-coach-in-waiting. If you can’t afford to go to the bowl you might be able to get a job coaching in it.

Holiday Bowl
#18 Nebraska (10-3) vs. Washington (6-6) – Thu. Dec. 30, 8 p.m.
It’s hard to imagine a bowl game with a greater disparity in motivation. What could the Huskers possibly gain by beating the Huskies again? They are already the undisputed kings of Husk.

Rose Bowl
#3 TCU (12-0) vs. #5 Wisconsin (11-1) – Sat. Jan. 1, 3 p.m.
The Pac-10 team has been replaced by a Mountain-West-turned-Big-East team. It’s just not right.

Orange Bowl
#4 Stanford (11-1) vs. #13 Virginia Tech (11-2) – Mon. Jan. 3, 6:30 p.m.
This will be the fourth time a Pac-10 team has traveled across the country to play in the Miami-based bowl. Washington won following the 1984 season and USC won after 2002 and 2004. The point is clear: If you’re going to travel this far you may as well win the thing.

BCS Championship Game
#1 Auburn (13-0) vs. #2 Oregon (12-0) – Mon. Jan. 10, 6:30 p.m.
I love college football enough to embarrass the next guy, but January 10? If this keeps up, someday we’re going to end up watching the Groundhog Day Bowl.

The over-extended delay is just begging for a sloppy game between two rusty teams. If you’re going to take five full weeks off you should give the teams an extra quarter to get warmed up.

As far as the game itself, it’s just the Pac-10’s third appearance in the BCS title game while the SEC has been there seven times, winning the previous six (including the last four years). Put aside any distaste you have for Nike U and root really, really hard for the Pac-10 to pull this out.

- – -

I wasn’t planning on writing anything about the UA/NAU basketball game because there wasn’t supposed to be anything worth writing about.

That was a little uncomfortable, wasn’t it?

When the Cats travel to North Carolina State on Sunday I think it’s safe to say they’re going to see some zone. Derrick Williams is now up to 75% shooting from behind the arc. If the Arizona’s “plan” against a zone is just to pass the ball around the perimeter and jack up 3′s, shouldn’t he be the guy doing the jacking?

But how does Williams play 32 minutes and only grab three rebounds? Getting dominated on the glass makes the jacked 3′s look even worse.

The Cats’ December funk has officially reached three games and the team will have a long cross-country flight to think about it. This is the last chance to get a decent non-conference win (and a precious road victory) so the funk needs to be left in Tucson.

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Scott Terrell will be taking his funk to San Antonio. Follow along on Facebook and Twitter.

Alex Zendejas was great in 2010. Wait… What?!
Photo by Rob Schumacher/The Arizona Republic

The regular season is history for the Arizona Wildcats football team. That means it’s a great time to update the record books and see how the stars of 2010 compare with the greats of yesteryear.

Some of this year’s stats are very impressive. And some don’t make any sense at all.

Juron Criner is having one of the best seasons ever by an Arizona receiver. He needs just one touchdown reception in the Alamo Bowl to make 11 for the year which would tie the single-season record shared by Theopolis “T” Bell and Mike Thomas.

With two catches Criner would have 75, the 5th best season total in school history. Four receptions gets him 4th place and 11 grabs would vault him up to #3. The junior from Las Vegas needs 144 receiving yards to become the 6th UA receiver to hit 2,000 in a career.

It’s not a surprise the guy throwing to Criner is also making a dent in the record book. Nick Foles needs 28 passing yards to move his career total to 5,425 which would be good for 7th place all time among Arizona quarterbacks. If Foles can pass for 327 against Oklahoma State he would move into 6th place and 352 yards would get him the 5th spot on the all-time list.

Looking at this year alone Foles is 89 yards away from posting the UA’s 4th 3,000-yard season. Since he’s not playing Nebraska again his chances are pretty good.

The superlatives continue for the 6-5 gunslinger from Austin. One passing touchdown would give Foles a career-high 20 on the year. A second TD throw makes him the 7th Wildcat passer with 40 in a career.

Foles needs five completions to tie for the 3rd best single-season total in school history (259), and seven completions to pass his total from last year as the new 2nd-best mark. It’s worth noting the last four years rank as the four best seasons in terms of completed passes in Arizona history. Thank you, Sonny Dykes!

Just because: David Douglas, David Roberts and Terrence Miller all have a season-long reception of exactly 38 yards.

Moving to the ground game, senior running back Nic Grigsby needs 102 rushing yards to become the 6th Wildcat to hit 3,000 career yards. The problem is you have to add up the last six games to get him over 100 yards. Grigsby needs two rushing TDs for 10 on the season and 30 for his career.

With three sacks against ASU Ricky Elmore jumped all the way from 5th place to become the 2nd most prolific sacker in school history. To catch Tedy Bruschi he only needs, oh, 26.5 sacks in the bowl game.

Looking at the Pac-10 team stats Arizona led the conference in passing offense. That’s because Foles led the league in passing yards per game and Criner led the conference in both receptions and yards. Elmore was also the Pac-10 leader in sacks.

You may want to sit down for this next one…

Alex Zendejas was the 2nd best kicker in the Pac-10.

It’s true. Sparky’s new best friend made 81% of his field goal attempts which was #2 in the conference. Let the head-shaking begin.

- – -

There needs to be an edit to last week’s list of Nick Foles’ game-winning drives. I had removed the ’09 Cal game because during the final UA drive the deficit was 8 points, making it a potential game-tying drive and not a game-winner.

But Foles still had a chance to be the hero on the previous possession when the Cats were only down two with less than five minutes to play. If you recall, that’s the drive that ended in the Faux Pass.

Nick Foles’ (Corrected) Potential Game-Winning Drives

It’s still a very, very impressive list.

- – -

In basketball news, Arizona does battle with NAU on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. on Fox Sports Arizona. The quest for the state championship begins!

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Scott Terrell is trying to crack the top ten among Arizona stat watchers who wear big red hats. Rank him on Facebook and Twitter.)

“San Antonio just called!”
Photo by Rob Schumacher/The Arizona Republic

The Alamo Bowl remembered the Arizona Wildcats.

In a surprising turn of events the San Antonio-based bowl ignored the last month of the season and selected slumping Arizona over surging Washington to play in the Dec. 29 game against the Oklahoma State Cowboys.

After five weeks of frustration the Cats caught a break. The best available bowl with the highest possible payout against a top-15 team. No other 7-5 team got it so good.

The UA caught a number of breaks, actually. Arizona tied for 5th in the final Pac-10 standings with Oregon State and ASU. Considering the Wildcats lost to both teams it’s not hard to argue the UA was the 7th-best team in the conference.

But the Cats played a 7-5 Iowa team this year instead of the 11-2 Hawkeyes from last year. Oregon State over-scheduled, Arizona State under-scheduled and USC cheated. Oregon went undefeated which made Stanford look good enough to get a very rare second BCS bid for the Pac-10.

All that adds up to an invitation from a $3 million bowl for a team that hasn’t won since before Halloween. If bowl bids were divvied up by the March Madness selection committee the 2010 Wildcats would be sweating out the bubble. Instead they’ve been given a free pass to the Sweet 16.

Now the question is: What are you going to do with it? Are you going to lay an egg and give everyone just cause to say you had no business being there (see Bowl, 2009 Holiday)? Or are you going to show up prepared and conditioned, play good football and give yourself a chance to pull off the upset?

The Wildcats also caught a break in the opponent. Not because Oklahoma State isn’t good. You don’t go 10-2 with the #1 offense in all the land (the Cowboys outgained Oregon by exactly one yard over 12 games) without being a very strong team.

What makes it a favorable matchup for the Cats is OSU isn’t a traditional football factory. The Cowboys don’t have a defense that will hold you to 46 passing yards. Quite the opposite; Oklahoma State is 90th in total defense and 115th in pass defense.

Yes, OSU will be a large favorite and deservedly so. But the Cowboys’ weaknesses nicely align with Arizona’s strength – passing for over 300 yards a game – so there’s a source of competitive optimism.

It’s the first year under the Pac-10’s new contract with the Alamo Bowl but it will be the third time a Pac team has played in the game. The winner of the very first Alamo Bowl game was the 1993 Cal team. Wildcat fans may remember them as the subject of many a horrid dream.

This will be Oklahoma State’s third postseason visit to San Antonio. The Cowboys lost both the 1997 and 2004 Alamo Bowls to Big Ten teams. OSU has played a Pac-10 team in a bowl game once before, losing to Oregon in the 2008 Holiday Bowl.

It’ll be very interesting to see how Wildcat Universe treats this game. It’s not an easy trip from Tucson. You’re either going to be spending a ton of time on the road (867 miles one way) or you’re going to be digging deeper into the travel budget. And, as we all know, this squad isn’t exactly on fire. The Cats are currently Smokey the Bear’s favorite team.

If a large red-and-blue contingent descends upon the Alamo Dome it would boost Arizona’s reputation among the bowl community. But if the stadium is a sea of orange, this big bowl break may be the Wildcats’ last big bowl break.

One year after the embarrassing shutout in San Diego the Cats will get another crack at a top Big 12 team. It’s a tremendous opportunity to right a bunch of wrongs. Does one win in a non-BCS bowl make up for four losses to end the regular season? No. And it certainly won’t make any Wildcat forget the Extra Point Game. But it would stop the backslide and give the program a good taste in its mouth as it prepares for the birth of Pac-12 play.

This game is also a chance to exorcise some demons. Do you think it’s a coincidence that the first time a Pac-10 team returns to the Alamo Bowl it’s the team afflicted by the Curse of Davy Crockett?

Thems the breaks.

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Scott Terrell remembers the nine-year bowl drought too well to miss this game. Follow him on the road to San Antonio via Facebook and Twitter.

Who will be the Wildcats’ hero…like Kyle Williams last year?
Photo by Rob Schumacher/The Arizona Republic

Arizona vs. Arizona State.

The Wildcats’ bowl options have become clear.

Arizona vs. Arizona State.

Juron Criner may be playing his final home game.

Did I mention it’s Arizona vs. Arizona State?

- – -

Here’s my one note from the Oregon game: Juron Criner is really, really good.

Just in case Criner ends up in the NFL next year make sure you take the time to appreciate his greatness. It’s been overshadowed by the team’s recent struggles but Juron has dialed it up about 12 notches since the start of Pac-10 play to put together one of the best seasons ever by an Arizona receiver.

Criner’s 67 receptions this year are the 6th best single-season mark in UA history. His 1,091 receiving yards are the 4th most in school history. The eight touchdown catches are just three shy of Arizona’s all-time record for a season. All this while hobbling around most of the year with multiple leg and foot injuries.

Thursday may be Senior Night at Arizona Stadium but reserve an extra hand for the junior with the great hands.

- – -

The Pac-10 bowl bubble has only two teams left:

ALREADY IN:
Oregon (11-0)
Stanford (11-1)
Arizona (7-4)

BUBBLE IN:
Washington (5-6)

BUBBLE OUT:
OSU (5-6)

NOT ELIGIBLE:
ASU (4-6*)
Cal (5-7)
UCLA (4-7)
WSU (2-9)
USC (Bushed)

(*ASU’s second FCS win not included.)

The last two bowl bids come down to two rivalry games. Washington is very glad their rival is the worst team in the league while Oregon State is lamenting the fact their rival is the best.

Even though Arizona State can no longer earn the six valid wins necessary to qualify for the postseason the Sun Devils refuse to give up their bowl dreams. They aren’t going to let silly things like “rules” and “math” get in the way.

Oregon will play in either the BCS championship game or the Rose Bowl. Stanford will finish in the BCS top four and get invited to either the Fiesta Bowl or Orange Bowl, which means the 2010 Cardinal will not suffer the same fate as the 1998 Wildcats. What Luck.

Arizona will play in either the Alamo Bowl on Wed. Dec. 29 or the Holiday Bowl on Thu. Dec. 30. If the Cats beat ASU it means a trip to San Antonio. The Alamo Bowl could still invite Arizona even after a loss since the UA would be the only seven-win Pac-10 team available, but I doubt it. If Washington beats WSU look for the Alamo to take a 6-6 Husky team on a three-game winning streak over a 7-5 Wildcat team on a four-game losing streak.

So the Wildcats could play in the Pac-10’s second-best bowl for the second straight year. Get your “I smell Davy Crockett!” signs ready.

All it takes is one win.

ASU won by three touchdowns last week while Arizona lost by 19. Advantage Sun Devils, right? Not so fast, Lee Corso‘s friends. Two games in the Mike Stoops era taught us to never trust momentum in this series: the 2004 UA win and the 2006 loss, both in Tucson.

Stoops’ first team was 2-8 after losing to USC by 40. The Cats had no chance to beat 8-2 ASU…except they beat 8-2 ASU.

Two years later Mo’s shoe was on the other foot as the Wildcats came into the Territorial Cup game riding a three-game winning streak to clinch bowl eligibility. There was no way they were going to lose at home to a mediocre ASU team…until Rudy Carpenter threw three touchdown passes in the first quarter.

You can throw the records out the window and that includes the November records. The team that hoists the Cup will be the team that plays the best for 3.5 hours on Thu. Dec. 2, 2010.

My one key to this game: Brooks Reed and Ricky Elmore. OK, maybe that’s two keys, but you get the idea. Arizona’s senior defensive ends were having a dominant season with 13.5 combined sacks going into the Stanford game. Now the pair has…13.5 sacks. The Wildcats as a team haven’t sacked the opposing quarterback once during the three-game losing streak. If that stat doesn’t change the losing streak will reach four.

ASU QB Brock Osweiler played tremendously well off the bench versus UCLA, but the 27 passes he completed last week were pretty close to the 37 completions he tallied in his first 22 games as a Sun Devil. This is not an experienced quarterback.

Osweiler has thrown for 779 yards in his career. Nick Foles has thrown for 801 yards in his last two games.

If Reed and Elmore can get to the quarterback on a regular basis there will be turnovers which should give Foles and Criner enough opportunities to score the points necessary to keep the Territorial Cup in Tucson for a third straight year.

Get out your rivalry haikus and pizza delivery smack.

It’s Arizona vs. Arizona State.

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(Looking for some friendly rivals? Try Facebook and Twitter!)