The Pac-10’s bowl hopes lie with Brehaut. Richard Brehaut.
Photo by Gary A. Vasquez/US Presswire

What’s worse than losing to Stanford, USC and (maybe) Oregon?

Losing to Washington State and then losing to Stanford, USC and Oregon.

As bad as the Arizona Wildcats feel the Oregon State Beavers feel worse. The UA will still be playing in a bowl game while OSU’s postseason chances are on life support following losses to lowly Washington and UCLA even before the debacle against Wazzu.

See? There are still positives to be found in the Wildcat Universe. You just have to look really hard.

- – -

Did Oregon State destroy the Pac-10 bowl bubble? Not yet. The Pac can still get five teams into bowls. Here’s how:

ALREADY IN:
Oregon (10-0)
Stanford (9-1)
Arizona (7-3)

BUBBLE IN:
Cal (5-5)

BUBBLE OUT:
UCLA (4-5)
OSU (4-5)
Washington (3-6)

NOT ELIGIBLE:
ASU (3-6*)
WSU (2-9)
USC (banished)

(*ASU’s second FCS win not included.)

The new best-case scenario is…

Cal – loses to Stanford, beats Washington = 6-6
UCLA – beats Washington and ASU, loses to USC = 6-6
OSU – loses to USC, Stanford and Oregon, doesn’t get anybody seriously injured = 4-8
Washington – loses to UCLA and Cal, beats WSU = 4-8
ASU – loses to UCLA and Arizona = 4-8

Unfortunately, I think Arizona State is going to beat UCLA in Tempe the day after Thanksgiving which would have the Sun Devils coming to Tucson with an FCS-aided 5-6 record. ASU would still have the hope that there won’t be enough eligible teams to fill the 35 bowls so they can get a pity invite.

If the Devils do get to 6-6 it would mean the Alamo Bowl might be stuck with a 7-5 Arizona team on a four-game losing streak. I don’t think that’s what the folks in San Antonio had in mind when they signed on to take the #2 pick from the Pac-10.

- – -

Are you already lamenting the Cats’ bye week? TWIT-Pac Lite is here to help!

Thu. Nov. 18 – 6 p.m. Arizona/Mountain Time, ESPN/ESPN3.com

UCLA (4-5 / 2-4) at Washington (3-6 / 2-4)
This is actually the most intriguing Pac-10 game of the week. The winner will have honest-to-goodness bowl aspirations for another week. What more can you ask for when two 7th-place teams square off on national TV?

Who do Wildcat fans want to win?
UCLA. The Bruins winning twice is more likely than the Huskies winning thrice. Plus Cat fans want the Bruins to get good at winning November road games.

- – -

Unless something crazy happens this will be the last installment of the Survivor Rankings:

1. Oregon
2. Stanford
X. ARIZONA
X. Oregon State
X. Cal
X. Washington
X. Arizona State
X. UCLA
X. Washington State
X. USC

It’s very simple: If Stanford wins their final two games and Oregon loses their final two games the Cardinal win the championship. Any other result and the Ducks clinch their second straight Pac-10 title.

Borrrring. But that’s what happens when the two great teams play early in the year and the rest of the teams are far from great. At least we still have BCS drama, and who doesn’t love BCS drama?

- – - – -

On to the additional thoughts from the USC game.

(Don’t stop reading now! There’s basketball talk below!)

We’re going to borrow a rule from my 3rd grade teacher and declare that every time you say something negative you have to follow it up with something positive. Challenge accepted.

- – -

Negative:
USC converted its first four red zone opportunities into 24 points. The Wildcats’ first four red zone trips included a missed field goal and a fumble. What was Arizona’s best option for scoring inside the 20 this year? He caught three touchdown passes from Tom Brady Sunday night. UA fans will always cheer for GRONK! in the NFL but every time he crosses the goal line a Wildcat will think, “Why couldn’t he have played with Nick Foles? Not even one time?!?”

Positive:
Terrence Miller locked up the team’s 2010 Most Improved award in just one week. After looking like his hands were allergic to leather against Stanford he doubled his season totals with seven catches for 116 yards against USC. Can the 6-4 sophomore be the down-the-middle threat the Cats have so desperately needed? A bye week is a great opportunity to get a young guy ready to take on an increased role and find out.

- – -

Negative:
It’s true the offense was down three starters due to injury (four if you count guard Vaughn Dotsy who hasn’t played all year). But the second-line receivers did just fine, and injuries don’t make you fumble in the red zone, or fail to read a corner blitz, or miss a short field goal.

Positive:
The Arizona offense converted an impressive 11-of-16 third downs (69%) but it was even more incredible than that. The Cats attempted to pass 15 times on third down and Nick Foles completed 14 of them. Foles was 14-of-15 for 166 yards, 10 first downs and two touchdowns on third down alone.

Usually you try to avoid third down. The Wildcats should have just taken a knee on first and second down.

- – -

Negative:
It was the first loss for the white helmets/red pants combo after a 4-0 start.

Positive:
The White-Red-White and White-Red-Blue combos are still unblemished and available for the ASU game.

- – -

Negative:
Arizona’s first punt was with three minutes left in the 3rd quarter yet the team only had 14 points. How do you pull that off? 1) Fail in the red zone. 2) Give up drives lasting 8:57 and 6:48. 3) Only have one full possession in the 2nd quarter.

Positive:
Arizona’s first punt was with three minutes left in the 3rd quarter!

- – -

Negative:
Those long USC drives were a new way for the Wildcat defense to get beat. The Trojans were the first team to dominate the UA on the ground from the opening kickoff. Even Stanford’s first two touchdown drives were the result of 148 passing yards compared to just 19 via the rush.

Positive:
The secondary didn’t get beat deep!

- – -

Negative:
Things Nobody Else Does

Offsides on offense. Not a false start, offsides. Wide receiver David Douglas didn’t move before the snap, he just stood in the wrong place. Strangest loss of five yards I’ve seen in a while.

Positive:
Douglas’ two touchdowns increased his career total by 50%. Thanks, roomie!

- – -

Negative:
Alex Zendejas attempted five kicks including one that got called back due to a penalty. Three of the five were deflected.

Positive:
Zendejas’ first punt of the year was nicely angled out of bounds at the 6.

- – -

Negative:
Zendejas’ second punt of the year only went 30 yards.

Positive:
It wasn’t blocked!

- – -

Negative:
Seeing Steve McLaughlin getting his jersey retired at halftime reminded Wildcat fans how rare it is to witness such poor punting and kicking at Arizona.

Positive:
The Cactus Comet was there! Anybody who can run for 3,000 yards without a facemask is a hero in my book.

- – -

Negative:
After 27 sacks in their first eight games the UA defense was shut out for the second straight week.

Positive:
You got me on this one. The other team’s quarterback had a very pleasant evening?

- – -

Negative:
Losing two straight games drops Arizona to a mediocre 4-3 in conference play.

Positive:
There are still three more opportunities to watch the Cats play in 2010 and momentum can shift in a hurry in college football.

- – -

Negative:
The first of those three games is at #1 Oregon.

Positive:
It’s time for that basketball talk!

You read the in-game commentary. You saw the highlights. It’s hard to think of a better start to a season than scoring 90 points and holding a team scoreless for an 11-minute stretch.

My main question going into the year was: Where are the Cats going to go for scoring when Derrick Williams is off the court (or just off)?

One game is one game but it was still encouraging to see the all-around play of Solomon Hill (10 points and 8 rebounds, including 3 on the offensive end), and the outside shooting of Brendon Lavender and freshman Jordin Mayes (combined 6-of-9 on threes) off the bench.

I fully expect the team defense to be better this year. The players have a full year of experience with Sean Miller’s system and expectations, and the team has enough athletes to keep guys fresh. But even if you have a 17-man rotation it doesn’t do you any good if you can’t put the ball in the bucket.

The season opener was certainly a positive.

- – - – -

(Negative: This post is done. Positive: Learn about the next one on Facebook and Twitter!)

“Yo, O, you going to lend a hand around here?”
Photo by Chris Morrison/US Presswire

As you were watching the Oregon/Stanford game what was running through your mind?

A) Both these teams stink. Arizona can start engraving the trophy now.

B) Looks like a couple more 10-9 games are coming.

C) Luck a Duck… The Cats might have to score 60 to beat these guys!

Yes, the Wildcat defense is better than expected. Some are even calling it the best in the league. But nobody is going to completely shut down the Ducks and Cardinal. The Arizona D played Oregon as well as anyone in the Pac-10 last year and still needed 31 points just to get to overtime. Stanford dropped 38 on the Cats. And both those games were at Arizona Stadium.

There’s no getting around it: the Wildcats are going to have to score a lot of points if they want to remain a contender in this conference.

Can they?

From the spring game, all through training camp and after the Toledo and Citadel games the answer would have been a resounding yes. The 34 points against Iowa look impressive but the defense and special teams did the bulk of the lifting. Then we all saw what happened against Cal.

Anyone can score when given a short field. The sign of a good offense is being able to drive the length of the field. To try and compare the Nick Foles/Juron Criner-led offense with the TuiThomas era I took a look at all drives starting from between the Arizona 10-yard-line and the Arizona 40. All field goal attempts count for the offense and drives to run out the clock at the end of a half are left out.

Only the toughest out-of-conference game each year is included and all Washington State games have been removed. The 2009 numbers only include Foles’ starts and I also ignored the Holiday Bowl since I’m still not sure the team was even there.

Year	Drives	Scoring Drives	%	TD Drives	%
2007	85	23	27%	15	18%
2008	76	26	34%	18	24%
2009	71	21	30%	13	18%
2010	21	6	29%	2	10%

The 2009 offense was very similar to that of the 5-7 team of 2007. The 2010 offense thus far is producing scoring opportunities at the same rate as last year but the touchdown percentage is down.

Granted, it’s a small sample size for 2010 but with all the returning starters on offense, this unit was supposed to dominate and it hasn’t happened yet.

At least not until the end of the game. What’s interesting is the only long touchdown drives in the last two games were the two game-winners.

So what’s wrong during the other 3.75 quarters? The easy excuse is injuries. Taimi Tutogi has been out most of the year, Travis Cobb missed the Cal game and Criner hasn’t been able to explode after the catch on short routes.

The other simple solution is discipline. Cut the penalties, limit the turnovers and the good drives turn into scoring drives and the scoring drives turn into touchdowns.

The bottom line is if the above issues are going away it needs to happen this week. After four games and a bye week you need to be at full speed. If Criner and Cobb aren’t 100%, or if holding penalties are still killing drives against Oregon State it’s a really bad sign.

For good or bad, the Arizona offense you see this Saturday is probably the Arizona offense you’re going to be stuck with the rest of the year. Hopefully it’s Duck worthy.

- – - – -

Say hello to Your Top-10 Arizona Wildcats.

We knew the potential was there to move up during an idle week but it was surprising to see the Cats jump all the way to #9. So it took one additional win and a well-timed bye for Arizona to claim the same ranking that Iowa brought on its trip to Tucson.

Why is the UA lagging a bit in the coaches’ poll? Well, it’s a positive indicator that we didn’t have to bring out this feature until now, but it’s time for another installment of…

Things Nobody Else Does

Mike Stoops is a voter this year in the USA Today coaches poll. He had a chance to help his team achieve the highest ranking of his career…and he didn’t turn in his ballot. You think Gabrielle Giffords and Jesse Kelly are going to have a hard time remembering to swing by the polling place on Nov. 2?

It says the USA Today couldn’t even find him. Should we be concerned? Do we put out an APB for Stoops and his hanging chad? Only at Arizona.

Speaking of the rankings, how annoyed is Oregon State right now? The Beavers bounce back to win their Pac-10 opener only to learn they’re going to be playing their third top ten team in five games, all on the road.

In other Pac-10 news, with ASU’s record dropping to 2-3 on the year coach Dennis Erickson has achieved a remarkable feat. He has managed to turn a 10-3 season (and an 8-0 start) into a .500 career record (21-21) at Arizona State.

On the flip side, if Arizona can win its next two games Mike Stoops will have turned a 6-16 start into a .500 career record (he’s currently 37-39). Like two ships passing in the night…

Now the guy just has to learn how to vote for himself.

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?

In the first quarter Arizona had two possessions, two first downs, and zero points. So much for a fast start to get a struggling Bear team to quit early.

Since we (rightfully) treated WSU like a scrimmage we had three weeks to prepare for Cal. The new wrinkle on offense was an odd one – splitting Chris Gronk out wide and using him as the motion man. Not only did it eliminate the threat of handing off to a wide receiver, it also made Gronk run 15 yards before getting ready to block on running plays.

To top it off, on the one tricky play we were setting up all game – C.Gronk going in motion and running deep down the sideline – Foles missed him. Back to the wrinkle drawing board.

Remember last year’s Cal game when we turned the game around with 28 third-quarter points? This year the UA opened the second half with five straight three-and-outs. Washington State’s offense wasn’t that bad.

The Wildcat defense didn’t give up a touchdown until midway through the third quarter and even then it took a 14-yard punt to set it up. We’re still waiting for the offense and defense to show up in the same non-scrimmage-like game.

Give Matt Scott credit. He came in after the fifth three-and-out, did what he does best, ended the first-down drought and got the team started on a TD drive. I hope we continue to use Scott’s legs to shake things up when they need a good shaking.

Rule of thumb: You don’t want fewer points than your ranking if you want to stay ranked.

How hard did Cal try to give this game away? Riley’s Longshore-esque interceptions, going for two too early, a pass interference penalty on 2nd-and-17, another PI on 3rd-and-12, and missing the final extra point in an eight-point game. But nobody out-Arizonas Arizona. Which brings us to…

• Turn a 15-yard loss into a nine-yard gain
  Not a three-yard loss. Not a seven-yard loss. Fifteen. Now that’s some poor tackling. The Cal player was so far behind the line of scrimmage even Jim Marshall was embarrassed.
• Forget the rules of football
  What would it take to top the double pass? Trying to throw the ball through the uprights for three points? Running a bootleg with the ball stuffed in your pants? I probably shouldn’t give them any ideas. But I do know this: Nick Foles is undefeated in games decided by fewer than one extremely bizarre play.

Cal only loses to USC and OSU at home. USC only loses to Stanford at home. You think they’ll let us borrow the Tree for December 5?

If you were using your TWIT-Pac decoder ring you knew once we lost to Cal it was OK to root against ASU, so at least we have that. Sure enough the Ducks put a beating on the Devils to get back to their winning ways, just in time to face our guys.

Stanford provided the blueprint for stopping Oregon: You don’t. Not a single Pac-10 team has held the Masoli-led Ducks below 42 points. That means we need six touchdowns just to stay in the game. Zendejas shouldn’t even bother warming up.

Here are the updated bowl projections (assuming the favorite wins each game), if you dare…

The big winner this past week was obviously Stanford who is now in the driver’s seat for the Holiday Bowl. Not a bad splash for your first postseason appearance in eight years.

The big loser over the weekend was Your Frustrating Arizona Wildcats. From the top 20 to battling UCLA for the Poinsettia Bowl.

But, hey, that’s nothing a big upset victory can’t fix.

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.

After games like this you have to force yourself to look at the big picture. At 3-2 the Cats are exactly where most of us thought they’d be when we looked at the schedule before the season. We’re still on pace for winning season and that second straight bowl game.

So we’re not going to be 8-0 and playing USC for first place in 2009. I can live with that.

Think back to the Iowa game. If you knew then we’d have a quarterback who completed 72% of his passes for 737 yards in securing a road split to open the Pac-10, you’d be ecstatic, right?

Nick Foles leads the Pac-10 in pass efficiency. #1. Yeah, he’s only started two games. I know his toughest games are ahead of him. But when’s the last time a UA QB was on top of any sort of positive ranking? Nothing builds football hope like quarterback potential.

Speaking of which, can you guess the guy right behind Foles in terms of pass efficiency? Stanford’s Andrew Luck. Big game this weekend.

The old common-opponent paradox comes into play with this one. Is it UA > OSU > Stanford, or Stanford > UW > UA?

I’ll answer it for you: Stanford is better than Washington. The Cardinal rank ahead of the Huskies (and Beavers) in scoring defense, pass defense, total defense and sacks. Mr. Foles isn’t going to be able to just sit back there and throw darts like he did in his first two starts.

So why do we still have a good chance to win? I looked it up and they do in fact let you play football games at home.

Finally. After 35 long days we have another game at Arizona Stadium. How is this game not Homecoming? When you’ve been gone for five weeks the least they can do is throw you a parade.

The crowd is going to have a lot of pent up energy and the players will feed off it. That should help bring focus after a week of distracting memories. Where Washington was last week after the Notre Dame loss, Arizona is this week.

The silver lining with all these last-second losses is this team knows how to bounce back. If there’s a plus to being inconsistent, that’s it. Bad losses don’t automatically mean a season-ending slide. The New Mexico, Stanford and Oregon State losses last year were all followed up with a win. In that sense Mike Stoops is the Anti-Tedford.

But that doesn’t mean he and his troops don’t drive us crazy sometimes, which means it’s time for another installment of…

Things Nobody Else Does

- Call timeout before the first snap of the second half
It’s not like you’re going to need that timeout when your quarterback gets sacked forcing 3rd-and-8 with less than a minute to go on the brink of field goal range in a three-point game.

- Get called for holding on an extra point
Our field goals are plenty scary. We don’t need to also turn PATs into adventures.

- Lose your starting defensive tackle to a door injury
Is that what it said on the injury report? RB Nic Grigsby (shoulder) – Questionable, RB Keola Antolin (ankle) – Doubtful, DT Earl Mitchell (door) – ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Pause. Deep breath. Moving on.

The best way to get over a brutal defeat is with a solid win, and a victory over this Stanford team would be just that. In Tucson, we get to tailgate again. We get to see Nick Foles start in person for the first time. And we get to cheer on the Arizona Wildcats again.

I think we’re going to be just fine.