It doesn’t matter who Arizona is playing, or how big an underdog the Cats are, once the ball goes in the air we start hoping for a win. When the team mounts a comeback to get it close before the half you begin to think it’s possible. When the defense pitches a shutout in the third quarter and the UA takes the lead you get sucked in. When the lead gets to ten in the fourth quarter you start to feel it. When you get a play-for-the-ages touchdown to retake the lead you know you’re THIS close.

And if you’re a fan of Arizona Football, you know you’re THIS close to losing it all.

That sinking feeling is what we’re fighting as a program. That woe-is-us fear that defeat is right around the corner. The problem is you could sense that fear at Arizona Stadium Saturday night. More specifically, you could hear it.

When Jeremiah Masoli found Ed Dickson for 23 yards down to the Arizona 2-yard line in the second overtime the building went silent. When LaMichael James was stopped short of the goal line it stayed silent. Even when the Ducks were stopped again on second down you could hear a rose petal drop.

That’s not normal. Remember, the Cats were winning at this point. If they get one more stop on third down they could force Oregon to go for the tie. If there’s a false start Arizona’s chances go way up. If there’s a turnover the Wildcats win. In any other stadium the crowd would have been deafening.

In any other stadium and they would have believed.

This is what Mike Stoops is up against. He’s not just trying to get better players to win more games. He has to save Arizona Football from itself.

This is our plea, Coach Stoops. Don’t become just another UA football coach. You have been a part of teams that won the big games. You have a national championship ring. Help us become like you. Please don’t become like us.

The red-and-blue lining is we still care and we keep coming back. As a fan, don’t ever let go of the pain. Do not give in to the numbness of apathy.

THIS will not always happen. Believe it.

. . . .

It was so close to being the perfect football day. The ESPN College GameDay experience lived up to the hype. In additional to the whole national-TV thing there was something about being out before dawn among like-minded people. It was like collecting left-footed platform shoes and finding out there’s a convention.

GameDay is so big it brings out fans of teams that aren’t even playing. There were supporters of Washington State (as always), Ohio State, Alabama, and…the Green Bay Packers? Apparently the NASCAR fans couldn’t make it.

After a day of anticipation the game got started with ESPN’s moving camera suspended above the field. The Stadium was packed and the atmosphere was electric. After spotting Oregon two touchdowns the Cats responded and the cycle of think-suck-fail began.

The Wildcats did make some really big plays. Nick Foles’ fade pass to Juron Criner in the corner of the end zone was a thing of beauty. Alex Zendejas’ 47-yarder to end the first half was huge. Xavier Kelley shutting down the fourth-down attempt with seven minutes left was a championship-level play. The 71-yard Criner catch-and-run had a chance to become this generation’s Chuck Cecil play.

But, alas, the list of Arizona Plays was longer. Fumbling at the one. Two Cats fighting for a fumble and kicking it back to Masoli. Missing a 24-yard field goal. Rushing the field too early. Hold on, that one deserves its own section…

Things Nobody Else Does

• Pour out of the stands in a one-score game while the other team has the ball

Aren’t you just asking to lose at that point? The only way it could have been worse is if they were on the phone buying Rose Bowl tickets.

Moving on. Who do we play this week?

Oh. Them.

This year’s Territorial Cup game is going to be a battle to see which team can best bounce back from having its dreams crushed. Arizona will finish short of the Rose Bowl for the 32nd consecutive year. ASU has locked up its second-straight losing season for the first time in 62 years. So all that national exposure associated with the Oregon game? This week will be the opposite.

But it’s still must-win for both teams.

With the Rose Bowl dream dying the question has been if the six-win Cats could end up going to the No Bowl. Could a 6-6 / 3-6 UCLA team get a bowl bid at the expense of a 6-6 / 4-5 Arizona team?

This explanation of the Pac-10 bowl selection process from the Emerald Bowl seems to indicate the conference standings take precedence. The Seattle Times says bowls will be able to pick any eligible Pac-10 team regardless of the final standings, but not until next year. So the Cats should be safe as long as the Bruins lose to USC.

But do we really want to find out? You know the Poinsettia Bowl would do everything possible to be able to take a team from the L.A. market that has won three of its final four games. The Cats need to win one more game to ensure they don’t get left out.

So we are playing for a bowl this week.

And did I mention it’s ASU? That should be all the motivation anybody needs.

. . . .

I know, I know, the basketball season is already two games old. We’ll preview (postview?) Miller Era, Year One soon. In the meantime the Maui Invitational starts Monday with the Cats tipping-off against Wisconsin at 10 p.m. Arizona time on ESPN2. Root for Arizona to play Gonzaga and either Maryland or Vanderbilt as the tournament progresses. The best scenario is beating good teams. The next-best scenario is losing to good teams.

Anyone know how to say “Bear Down” in Hawaiian?

ASU (4-6 / 2-5) at UCLA (5-5 / 2-5) – 2 PM (all times Arizona/Mountain), FSN
The loser drops into 9th place. Can UCLA complete the three-game-winning-streak bookend to its midseason five-game slide?

Who do we root for?
UCLA. Doesn’t that feel much better? There’s a big reason to root against the Bruins (they only have one fewer overall win than the Wildcats) but eliminating the Devils from bowl contention a week before we play them would be a glorious thing.

OSU (7-3 / 5-2) at WSU (1-9 / 0-7) – 3 PM
Everyone in the league is talking about an Oregon/Oregon State showdown for the Pac-10 championship. The Beavers couldn’t possibly blow it against the lowly Cougars, could they?

Who do we root for?
WSU. With the Cal loss OSU isn’t needed for tiebreakers. Arizona wins out or it doesn’t. An unbelievable Beaver loss would drop them further down the bowl ladder.

Cal (7-3 / 4-3) at Stanford (7-3 / 6-2) – 5:30 PM, Versus
The Big Game has ended in a tie eleven times. What is this, a soccer rivalry?

Who do we root for?
Cal. Same logic as the OSU game. Stanford is higher in the standings so we want them to fall.

Oregon (8-2 / 6-1) at ARIZONA (6-3 / 4-2) – 6 PM, ABC
You can’t ask for a more meaningful final home game if you’re a UA senior.

Who do we root for?
Your Back-In-The-Underdog-Cape Arizona Wildcats.

Are you ready for the most significant November football game in the history of the University of Arizona? The Cats have never before carried win-out-and-we’re-in status this late in the season. The college football world, through the eyes of the Worldwide Leader in Sports, has never focused on Tucson as intently as it will on Saturday.

Arizona has beaten great teams in November before. But this game is different. This time the Wildcats have a chance to become a great team in November.

If you’ve ever wondered what a big-time football atmosphere would look like decked out in Red and Blue, you’re about to get your first taste at 6 p.m. on Nov. 21 at Arizona Stadium. Our Stadium.

“Tell them… tell the team to BEAR DOWN.”

Let’s do it again.

Why can’t we just lose like normal teams? When it comes to big games Arizona doesn’t do “Their QB just caught fire and there was nothing we could do” losses or “They were simply the better team” losses. No, it has to be something you’ve never seen before. Around here, once-in-a-lifetime plays happen every other year.

Foot Game, meet the Double-Pass Game. As if our armoire of traumatizing memoirs wasn’t already full.

In the grand scheme of things this loss doesn’t change anything. The team still controls its own fate for the league championship while at the same time being right on pace for the 7-5 season we hoped for in August. Losing at Cal doesn’t change any of that, but that’s the point. We wanted this game to change things.

We wanted a team that was going to rise to the occasion and play its best ball when the stakes were highest. We wanted a team of destiny that was going to take advantage of all the good fortune going on around us.

The extraordinary excitement leading up to this game wasn’t so much because of something the Wildcats did as it was because of what was going on everywhere else. If USC was undefeated and in the top five we wouldn’t have thought twice about being 4-2 in league play. But USC has three losses, Cal has three losses and Oregon has lost twice. OSU and Stanford waited until after losing to us to get red hot. We are getting every needed break. But breaks don’t mean you have a better team.

So why the doom and gloom? Because there are two sides to the equation. One is being in a position to win a championship. The other is having a team good enough to do so. We knew the Cats wouldn’t be eliminated with a loss at Cal, but we knew this was a measuring stick game, and Arizona didn’t measure up.

Does this mean we shun the team the rest of the way? Of course not. You don’t stop loving your dad when you discover he isn’t Superman. You’re just sad for a while.

The Wildcats didn’t roll over after the Washington loss and they won’t roll over now. You wish you were going into the Oregon game on a Stanford-like roll but we are what we are, and that’s still allergic to success.

The program hasn’t yet learned how to play from in front. We had our first chance with the yellow jersey but instead of riding like Lance Armstrong we rode like…uh…a cyclist other than Lance Armstrong.

So we find ourselves back in a familiar role: middle-of-the-standings, unranked underdog with a top team coming to town for a game on network TV. Thus knocketh opportunity a second time.

We found Nick Foles behind Door #2. Maybe we can find late-season magic there too.

Do you believe? Do you even want to believe? The bigger the dreams the harder they fall. Do we ignore the Cal game, focus on the “Win three and we’re in” mantra and dive heart-first into the Oregon showdown, or do we scale hopes back to 7-5 and prepare for the worst on Saturday?

I’m not going to decide. Conference champions win games like this, but 7-5 teams can too. I’m going to go to GameDay. I’m going to participate in the Red Out. Not because it’s the first step in a miraculous run toward a dream, but because my team is playing at home and we can win a really big game.

We’ll worry about scenarios and expectations again next week. This week is about packing the Stadium, making a ton of noise, and storming the field.

So, yes, I want a little zing in my zang-zang.