Adam Hall leads with his “helmet” against Oregon.
Photo by Craig Mitchelldyer /US Presswire

The Arizona Wildcats football team is not #1 in the country. The Arizona basketball team is not #6.

Stripping the emotion those are the facts after the weekend’s losses. Neither fact ruins your season as long as you regroup and accomplish the goal in front of you.

For the football team the time to regroup is quickly running out but the next goal is crystal clear:

Beat ASU.

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The Cats will try to get right without Wright.
Photo by Chris Morrison/US Presswire

Morale is down in the football portion of the Wildcat Universe.

The Stanford loss was deflating. The USC loss was depressing. Two more losses would be devastating.

Not the best time to be playing the #1 team in the land. Or is it?

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Now you, too, can get close to the Territorial Cup.
Photo by Rob Schumacher/The Arizona Republic

The start of the 2010 college football season is still more than a month away. You’ve already read all the preview magazines and the online predictions. What are you supposed to do now?

If you’re a fan of the Arizona Wildcats you head to the Hall of Champions.

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That’s the way the ball bounces. It’s a game of inches. Zendejas beats Arizona State.

Some clichés are more fun than others. There’s also a cliché about winning ugly that applies.

Nobody was able to make us feel better after the Washington and Cal games. And that same nobody can make us feel bad about beating ASU.

Sometimes the ball bounces off someone’s foot. Sometimes a tipped ball lands in a confused quarterback’s hands. But sometimes a blocked punt isn’t returnable and the team ends up settling for a field goal. Sometimes a muffed punt hops right back into the returner’s hands. The latter two didn’t happen on this particular day and the Wildcats left Sun Devil Stadium victorious.

Each football season is divided into three parts with the opportunity to earn a fourth. There’s the out-of-conference season, the Pac-10 season, and your rivalry game. The Cats did well enough in the first season, the second season is incomplete, but the 2009 version of the third season is officially and forever a success.

On a day when the UA offense never got it going as Nick Foles had to wear a Luke Skywalker-like glove to protect his injured hand, the Wildcat D-line came up huge with a combined five sacks. Not bad for a bunch of converted fullbacks.

Have you noticed all four of our starting defensive lineman have a uniform number in the 40s? Oh, you didn’t? You must have only been looking for useful information.

ASU’s defense is legit but unfortunately for them the Devil offense is really, really, really, really, really, really bad. How strange is it to see Arizona with the superior quarterback and ASU with the defense that is dying for some support?

How terrifying was it that we were staring at overtime with a minute to play? None of us in Red and Blue needed extra football for the second straight week. Overtime should be banned for a while. Blame the economy if you have to. I’ll gladly take a furlough.

If you want to drive yourself crazy consider this: If Foles’ pass at Cal doesn’t get tipped, and if the Cats get the stop on 4th-and-4 against Oregon, this win against ASU clinches the Rose Bowl. Two plays.

But I will be staying sane this week. My glass is half-full and it’s conspicuously shaped like a silver cup from 1899. Bring on the good news…

We won a three-point game! The seven close-game losing streak is over.

We won wearing white-on-white! It was the first win for our palest uniform combination since Willie Tuitama’s first start four years ago. That win was by two points so the flip side is two of Mike Stoops’ three 3-points-or-less wins have been in white-on-white, meaning both of the white-on-white wins in the Stoops era (we’re 2-6) were decided by narrow margins.

Fashion conclusion: Arizona can win while wearing white jerseys and white pants, but rarely, and barely.

Stoops is now 3-3 against ASU but he’s 2-1 against Dennis Erickson. Considering Devil fans’ low opinion of Coach Mike that has to annoy them the way it bothers Wildcats that Stoops finished with a losing record against Dirk Koetter.

Sun Devils should be happy they don’t have a bowl game. Erickson (now 19-18 at ASU) gets to call himself a winning coach for a few more months.

Don’t forget that Koetter was fired for winning 54% of his games, after Bruce Snyder was fired for winning 57% of his games.

Mike Stoops on the other hand had his best season to date last year and he has a chance to better it this year. With seven wins the Cats have now guaranteed a bowl game and winning record for the second straight year.

My prediction is a win against USC puts us in the Sun Bowl while a loss leaves us with the Poinsettia Bowl.

Well, the Poinsettia isn’t a prediction, it’s a fact. But if the UA beats USC and Oregon beats OSU I think the Holiday Bowl takes Stanford and their Heisman Trophy finalist leaving the Cats for El Paso.

The only other potential scenario I see after a win over USC is this:

1. OSU beats Oregon to go to the Rose Bowl.
2. The Holiday Bowl has to take Oregon.
3. The Sun Bowl takes Toby Heisman.
4. The Emerald ignores the pleas from Vegas and settles for a repeat visit from hometown Cal.
5. The Bowl Formerly Known As Las Vegas has to take Arizona who is ahead of USC in the standings.

The Vegas opponent? BYU, as the Cougars finished second in the MWC with TCU going to a BCS bowl. Could you handle an exact repeat of last year’s bowl matchup?

That wouldn’t be a bad bounce at all.

Do you know what week this is?

Thanksgiving? True, but that’s not what I had in mind.

The week after we got our hopes up for the Rose Bowl only to have them ripped away reopening a decades-old wound? Now you’re just being cruel. Let me give you a hint:

ASU! (wonk-WONK-wonk) ASU! (wonk-WONK-wonk) ASU! (WONK-wonk-WONK)

Now do you feel it?

Rivalry week is here.

They say you can throw the records out the window in games like this and that’s good news for both teams. Arizona has tumbled in the league standings with two consecutive losses and ASU is staggering to the finish on a five-game slide. Very few eyes outside the Grand Canyon State will be tuning in to this one which would appear to give this year’s game little significance. But don’t tell that to any of the guys lining up in the trenches on Saturday, or any of the fans, families and alumni squaring off across the aisle or in the living room.

No hype, no national implications, just two neighboring schools doing battle for football bragging rights.

Ain’t it beautiful?

A year’s worth of pride is more than enough incentive but there’s plenty more on the line. The Cats are trying to win consecutive games in the series for the first time since – of course – 1997 and ’98. That was the final year of that glorious run when the UA went 13-3-1. Since then the Devils have fought back with a 7-3 run of their own. As the Zeros come to a close the Devils have already clinched a winning decade in the rivalry, their first since the ‘70s.

Arizona has locked up a better Pac-10 record than ASU this year which means the UA will finish ahead of ASU in the league standings for the second straight year. This is the first such streak for the Cats since three consecutive superior Pac finishes in 1992-’94.

The Wildcats are trying to use this game as a stepping stone to the Holiday Bowl. If we win out and Oregon beats OSU we finish no worse than a four-way tie for second. (The sixth place team in that scenario? Holy cow…USC.) Even if the Holiday passed on Arizona you have to think the Sun Bowl would snatch up the Cats in a second, so we can still have a very solid year – as long as we beat Arizona State.

That’s easier said than done. The UA hasn’t won at Sun Devil Stadium since we had hope for Mackovic (his first year, 2001).

You want some happier facts? Here are a few trivia questions you may want to use around the office or Thanksgiving dinner table:

Who has the most recent top-10 finish?
Arizona, 1998 to 1996

Who has the most recent current-BCS bowl win?
Arizona, 1993 to 1986

Who has the most recent bowl win?
Arizona, 2008 to 2005

Who has the most winning in-conference seasons in the Pac-10?
Arizona, 14 to 12, not counting this year

Who has the most head-to-head wins in Pac-10 era?
Arizona, 17 to 13

Who has the most head-to-head wins overall?
Arizona, 45 to 36

As far as that last one, don’t let anyone give you the “Look at the head-to-head since Arizona State College became a university” excuse. There’s a reason they call it “all time.” Look here, Normals/Owls/Bulldogs/Sun Devils. Just because you legally change your name doesn’t mean you’re not still the guy who got hung by his underwear in gym class.

The stats say if the Arizona offense plays well this weekend the Cats win. ASU hasn’t scored more than 21 points during their losing streak. They haven’t put up 28 against anyone in the Pac-10 and they’ve ended up in the teens (or worse) five times. This is not a good offensive team.

But they can play some D. Number one in the Pac-10 in total defense and pass defense, and #2 in rushing defense and scoring defense. Oh, and #1 in penalties.

The Devil D is talented and reckless and that’s what makes them dangerous. If this game were a cop movie the ASU defense would be the loose cannon that’s going to get someone killed. We just have to make sure it’s not our quarterback.

The Arizona O-line needs to take it personally. No one touches Nick Foles. Maintain your blocks until two seconds after the pass. We don’t need a repeat of 2005 and ’06 when Willie Tuitama left the game and a win left the building.

Speaking of leaving, here’s something for ASU fans to ponder: Dennis Erickson has coached at three Pac-10 schools. He has a nine-win season at each school. He has exactly one nine-win season at each school.

Here’s something for Wildcat fans to ponder: Our last two road games were Washington and Cal. You have every right to be terrified.

One thing I know for certain is Arizona better build (and maintain) a lead bigger than three points if we want to win. After dropping yet another close one last week the Versus stat is starting to take on a life of its own. The Cats are 0-2 this year in games decided by three points or less which makes it seven straight losses and 2-11 all-time for Mike Stoops. This is a bad thing.

The Wildcats need to score touchdowns early and often to take the hope from the Sun Devils and suck the life from the home crowd. A quiet Sun Devil Stadium means no upset, no ending the season on a high note…

And no WONK-wonk-WONK.