Unleash the Ant!
Photo by Deirdre Hamill/The Arizona Republic

The Arizona Wildcats ended their seven-day run as an undefeated top-10 team. Who replaces them as Oregon’s top challenger? And what did ASU’s win at Washington do for their bowl chances?

Here’s how the Pac-10 contenders stack up in this week’s Survivor Rankings:

1. Oregon
2. Oregon State
3. Cal
4. ARIZONA
5. Washington
6. Stanford
X. Arizona State
X. UCLA
X. Washington State
X. USC

I thought about eliminating Washington for losing at home to ASU but the Huskies will have plenty of opportunities to eliminate themselves with OSU, Arizona, Stanford and Oregon in succession.

Cal gets slotted above the Wildcats for finally putting it together against UCLA, and for getting both Stanford and Oregon at home late in the year.

It’s no surprise that the #2 ranking goes to the only team besides Oregon without a conference loss. The Beavers have the Cardinal and Ducks as their final two games so it’s conceivable OSU could push its winning streak to seven games. That is, of course, if they can overcome the loss of their best receiver and kick returner.

I agree with Mike Riley and Adam Hall that the play that injured James Rodgers wasn’t dirty. It was a bad play by an inexperienced player that summed up the night for the UA secondary: out of position and two steps too slow. The result is very unfortunate and the Beavers will have a lot to overcome if they want to make a run at the conference championship for the third straight season.

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With half of the Pac-10 teams halfway through their seasons it’s time to start the football version of bubble watch. Which schools have the best shot at the league’s six bowl bids?

(Team record in parentheses.)

ALREADY IN
Oregon (6-0)

THE KEY IS IN THE LOCK
Stanford (5-1)
Arizona (4-1)

BUBBLE IN
OSU (3-2)
Cal (3-2)
UCLA (3-3)

BUBBLE OUT
ASU (2-3*)
Washington (2-3)

(*ASU’s second FCS win isn’t included.)

Considering the sixth bowl team has to come from among UCLA, ASU and Washington it’s very possible the Pac-10 only ends up with five bowl-eligible teams. If USC wins some games and there are no huge upsets you could easily see UCLA and Washington ending up with no more than five wins and ASU really wishing they hadn’t played two FCS teams.

If Oregon gets into the BCS championship game there’s no way the Pac-10 fills its bowl slots. Blame Reggie Bush’s fat wallet.

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Sadly, it’s time to update this already:

Arizona’s history in the AP Top 10

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The biggest upset in the Cats’ game against OSU had nothing to do with the point spread. In a shocking turn of events the blue jerseys saw their nine-game winning streak snapped. The last time Arizona lost wearing blue shirts? 2006 against…Oregon State.

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Consistency is what separates good teams from great ones. If the Cats could combine the special teams from the Iowa game, the defense from the Cal game and the (passing) offense from the Oregon State game the result would be a beat-down so severe even Nic Wise‘s dad would call it excessive.

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In the first four games Nic Grigsby had been the primary ball carrier and Keola Antolin had been relegated to catching swing passes. Based on the results against the Beavers maybe the roles should be reversed.

Antolin’s downhill running style and instant acceleration could be what’s needed to squeeze through the small (and rapidly closing) holes produced by the UA O-line. Grigsby proved that his lateral quickness and cut-back-ability are lethal against linebackers and DBs on the perimeter.

Arizona needs to continue mixing in runs between the tackles and Antolin may be the answer to making the most of them.

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Watching the replay confirmed what we saw with our naked eyes: OSU quarterback Ryan Katz was incredible. He made every single throw in the book and some from the CliffsNotes. Rolling right, rolling left, short, deep, stepping up in the pocket, getting drilled in the back. The ball came out clean every time and hit his target in the numbers. If he’s going to play like that the Beavers could win with Fred Rogers at receiver.

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I realize if it comes down to trying to pull off an 80-yard multi-lateral play you have no business winning the game, but if you find yourself in that situation you should at least run the play right.

It’s simple: Don’t ever get tackled with the ball. Make the defense intercept a lateral or fall on a fumble. When Travis Cobb got tackled to end the game he actually had Juron Criner available to his right to keep the play alive.

The other rule? If the band runs on the field, barrel into the trombone player.

“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.

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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.

Corn on the...
Photo by Matthew Holst/Press-Citizen

A number of Pac-10 teams were challenged for the first time this past weekend. Did anyone show enough to move up in the Survivor Rankings? Did someone not show enough to avoid getting the boot?

1. Oregon
2. Stanford
3. ARIZONA
4. Oregon State
5. Arizona State
6. Cal
7. Washington
X. UCLA
X. Washington State
X. USC

The Wildcats definitely have the best win to date but it’s not like Oregon (63 points per game) and Stanford (68 points against a BCS conference team) have been struggling.

The team you have to move up is Arizona State. They still have a solid defense and they appear to have found a quarterback who can complete a forward pass. ASU, Cal and Washington all lost on Saturday but the Devils looked the best of the three.

Washington was really close to dropping from 6th place to elimination but we’ll let Jake Locker complete 20% of his passes in a conference game before crossing them off.

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If you are a player, coach or staff member associated with the University of Arizona football program please click the X in the top right corner of your screen now. Thank you.

(Are we in the clear? Good. I’m going to talk some more about the Iowa game.)

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It’s usually a good sign if you get to kick off three times in the first five minutes.

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Watching the replay I loved the virtual tour of the visitors’ locker room at Arizona Stadium, including a walk down the single-file staircase. I don’t care how many millions of dollars go into improving the 80-year-old building, don’t touch that stairway.

Speaking of the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, you can’t discount the ESPN factor when you look at the rankings. Arizona does not enter the polls after beating Toledo if that game isn’t on the Worldwide Leader. You don’t jump ten spots in the AP poll if the Iowa game is on Fox Spots Arizona. Yet another reason Larry Scott is under a lot of pressure to get the Pac-10 more exposure with the new TV deal.

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It’s fitting that a team from Iowa was beaten with the help of a guy named Cobb.

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On the game-winning touchdown watch what happens when Nic Grigsby goes in motion out of the backfield before the snap. A linebacker from the middle of the field follows him, opening up the fraction of a hole that Nick Foles squeezes the ball through for the score. A nicely designed play and perfect execution from an experienced quarterback.

Here is Foles’ growing list of potential game-winning drives:

Vs.	Time Left	Deficit	Result	W/L
Washington	2:27	3	INT	L
Stanford	5:27	5	TD (Grigsby 57 yard run)	W
Cal	1:21	8	sack on 4th down	L
ASU	2:02	tied	3-and-out (followed by muffed punt)	W
USC	7:13	3	TD	W
Iowa	8:12	tied	TD	W

That’s a 50% success rate with a 4-2 team record. Not bad at all.

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The red jerseys have now won four of their last five games. Red-on-red is now an even 3-3 under Mike Stoops. The new striped white helmets remain undefeated and should be ridden until they collapse.

Anyone complaining about the UA switching helmets or jerseys should be glad the team isn’t using non-school-colors like this or this.

And, just to prove I’m not the only one who thinks about this stuff, I’d like to introduce the smartest person in Berkeley.

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Season tickets come with player pictures on them and the Arizona art designer is two for two in predicting the hero of the game. Grigsby was the star against The Citadel and Foles tossed the game-winner vs. Iowa. Who’s the favorite to shine against Cal according to the tickets? Trevin Wade, which is fitting with Kevin Riley coming to town.

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It’s easy to play as the underdogs. Lots of teams thrive carrying the “us against the world” banner. But a good chunk of the world is now in Arizona’s corner after the Iowa win. The tables have completely turned and it’s a very different challenge for the coaches and team leaders.

The first five minutes set the tone against the Hawkeyes. The same could very well be true against Cal. Is the defense going to come out stuffing the run and flying around Riley’s face? Will the offense start sharp with strong pass protection and accurate throws? Or will the Bears be allowed to believe they can be the ones pulling off the big upset?

The Cats had a horrible offensive showing against Cal last year. A regular-season-low 16 points. Only 274 yards of total offense. Converting just 3 of 13 third downs (and 0-2 on fourth down). The double-pass thing.

That’s the game the players need to focus on this week, not the one that was just played. There would be nothing wrong with bringing up the Holiday Bowl a few times as well.

The road to real redemption starts now.

Can Juron Criner do a lot of this in 2010?
Photo by Brad Allis/WildcatSportsReport.com

We are just one work week away from the return of Arizona Wildcat football.

The goal is at least nine wins in 2010. Here are the questions that need to be answered in order to get there:

Can Mike Stoops find happiness in a stranger’s house?

Toledo isn’t expected to do much this year but a victory over the Rockets would be Mike Stoops’ best non-conference road win since, well…ever.

It’s true. Stoops and the Cats have gone oh-for-the-road in non-league match-ups. 2005 Utah, 2006 LSU, 2007 BYU, 2008 New Mexico and 2009 Iowa. Three of those teams went on to win 11 games. Four of them won bowl games. I’ll bet you can guess which one of these things is not like the others.

Toledo will be a lot closer to New Mexico than LSU so if Stoops is going to break through on the road, the time is now. (That’s a definite theme this year.)

Are four heads better than two?

It has been well-documented that the UA will be breaking in two sets of co-coordinators. On defense any changes may be hard to spot (especially with Mike Stoops still calling the shots) but the play-calling on offense will be out there for everyone to see. Will Seth Littrell (also the running backs coach) and Bill Bedenbaugh (O-line coach) emphasize the run game more than Sonny Dykes?

In the first couple games what gets called might not be as important as how quickly it gets called. Wildcat fans will painfully recall the rough start to the Mike Canales era at the beginning of Stoops’ tenure. Arizona seemed to spend more time calling timeouts and accepting delay of game penalties than running actual plays. How long will it take Littrell to adjust to the speed of the game as a rookie play-caller?

Can the offense beat a full-court press?

In Nick Foles’ first three starts last year he completed 75% of his passes with averages of 35 completions and 351 yards a game. Over his final seven starts those numbers dropped to a 57% completion rate with 21 completions and 190 yards per game. What happened? Starting with UCLA the opposing defenses said, “You know what, Mr. Accurate Long-Haired Guy? We’re not going to let you pick us apart with short passes.” Defensive backs played press coverage and Foles and the Arizona receivers never could completely adjust.

The big need for 2010 is the emergence of a legitimate deep threat. What made Mike Thomas so dangerous was he could beat you on a quick throw but we would blow by you on the outside if you played him too close. The Cats need to find a receiver with a little Money in him.

Juron Criner beat USC with a long-ball. Can he do it on a consistent basis? Is either Bug Wright or Travis Cobb ready to do something with their speed other than terrorize the WSU special teams? The difference between a good offense and an elite one could depend on it.

Will Arizona see red in the zone?

If you aren’t going to be able to hit a home run on every possession you have to be able to convert in the red zone. In 2008 the Wildcats had GRONK! through the air (10 touchdowns) and the Grigsby/Antolin combo on the ground (23 rushing TDs). All three of those guys were injured in ’09 and the offense took a step backwards.

What will be this year’s strategy inside the opponent’s 20? Pound it behind the big offensive line to see if Grigs and Ant can recapture their paydirt-finding glory (with some Nwoko mixed in)? Throw the fade in the corner to Criner? Establish a new threat over the middle? Taimi Tutogi as a one-man wrecking crew was an option but he’s been out all of camp with an injury. Whatever the plan, the goal is to put Alex Zendejas to work on extra points instead of field goals.

Are the new linebackers just inexperienced or are they really bad?

Shifting to the defensive side of the ball all eyes will be on JC transfers Derek Earls and Paul Vassallo, and true sophomore (and local kid) Jake Fischer. Can the brand new linebacking corp cut it?

The good news is the new LBs don’t have to be stars. The three seniors on the D-line need to be stars. Trevin Wade needs to be a star. The linebackers don’t have to Ricky Hunley, Byron Evans and Lance Briggs. They just need to know their assignments, be in position, and make tackles.

If they can’t? It might be the “Kish of Death” for this year’s team.

Will the secondary produce Golden Flowers?

If you get past the veteran line and the rookie ‘backers you end up with Wade and the Question Marks. Robert Golden is playing a new position. Seniors Anthony Wilcox and Joe Perkins are listed as the safety starters but they have nary a start between them. Their backups are true freshman Marquis Flowers and true sophomore Adam Hall.

It’s understandable if Wildcat fans are having nightmares of receivers running free downfield while the guys in red and blue point fingers at each other. And that brings us too…

Are we in for shootouts at the UA Corral?

The Stanford and Oregon games last year were the best of times and the worst of times for the Arizona faithful. The offense looked like an unstoppable force. The defense looked unable to a force a stop.

In 2007 the Cats broke the 45-point barrier in three different games for the first time since 1983. Dykes did it again in 2008. The last time Arizona scored 45+ four times in the same season? 1954, when Art Luppino was running wild for Coach Warren Woodson.

If that record falls in 2010 Wildcat fans are in for a wild ride. If that record needs to fall in order to keep the games close Wildcat fans will be sick.

The answers are coming and you only have to survive one more week of work before we get there.

No question about it.