Chris McAlister was a unanimous All-American in 1998

Arizona’s Fearsome Foursome of defense — Tedy Bruschi, Rob Waldrop, Chuck Cecil and Ricky Hunley — are now in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Bruschi will be officially inducted in December after being selected by the National Football Foundation on Tuesday.

Former coaches Warren Woodson, Darrell Mudra and Jim Young are also in the Hall of Fame.

Is this Arizona’s limit? Four players and three coaches? Where is the “Cactus Comet” Art Luppino? What about Chris McAlister? Dennis Northcutt?

And shouldn’t Larry Smith and Dick Tomey get consideration?

Woodson was 26-22-2 in only five years in Tucson from 1951-56. He won the necessary 60 percent of his games because of stints at Arkansas State Teachers University (40-8-3), Hardin-Simmons (57-23-6), New Mexico State (63-36-3) and Trinity (16-5).

Mudra was 200-81-4 in his career but he was 15-27-1 at Arizona and Florida State, the only major college programs he coached. And he lasted only four years total at those institutions. He stockpiled victories at places like Adams State, North Dakota State, Western Illinois, Eastern Illinois and Northern Iowa.

Tomey had a career record of 185-145-7, a winning percentage of .546 that falls below the National Football Foundation’s required 60 percent.

Tomey, however, is widely respected among his peers and former players. During his tenure at Arizona, he coached five future NFL first-round draft choices, 20 All-Americans, and 43 Pac-10 first team players. His best teams were in the mid-1990s, highlighted by the “Desert Swarm” defense of which Bruschi and Waldrop helped form into one of the best units in college football history.

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The last 50 days took me back to some of the days I miss and some I wish I could experience via a time machine.

Who wouldn’t want to observe the 1914 game against Occidental in Los Angeles when the Arizona Varsity became the Arizona Wildcats? What made Bill Henry of the Los Angeles Times write that famous line: “The Arizona men showed the fight of wildcats”?

What about being there in the hospital room to hear John Byrd “Button” Salmon tell coach J.F. “Pop” McKale, “Tell them … tell the team to bear down”?

I was alive, barely two months old, when Arizona upset Ohio State and Woody Hayes in the 1967 season opener. Who knows? I may have listened to it. I have to ask my mom to jog her memory and let me know if my dad and brothers happened to listen to the game on radio and I was in the crib nearby.

Many of these top 50 games in Arizona football history took place before the advent of cable and satellite TV and the ESPN phenomenon. Some of them I remember listening to on the radio because a live telecast was not available.

John Byrd “Button” Salmon

Those games include “The Catch” game in 1975 in which ASU’s John Jefferson — did he or didn’t he? — was ruled to have caught a touchdown pass that helped prevent Arizona from winning the WAC and playing Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl, and the UA’s victory over ASU in 1985 in which Max Zendejas kicked a 57-yard field goal in Tempe that contributed to the Wildcats preventing the Sun Devils from playing in the Rose Bowl yet again.

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In the 50 days leading up to Arizona’s season-opener against Toledo, on Sept. 1 at Arizona Stadium, TucsonCitizen.com and its affiliate WildAboutAZCats.net will rank the Top 50 games in the history of the football program. The ranking is at No. 4 as the kickoff to the Wildcats’ season — and the start of the Rich Rodriguez era — is only four days away.

SCORE: No. 14 Arizona Wildcats 34, No. 4 ASU Sun Devils 17

DATE: Nov. 22, 1986

SITE: Arizona Stadium, 58,267 in attendance

WHY IT MADE THE LIST: “You Can’t Smell Roses With A Broken Nose”

The scoreboard at Arizona Stadium reflects Chuck Cecil’s achievement as the UA took a commanding lead in its upset win over No. 4 ASU in 1986 (fan photo)

An Arizona fan lofted that sign high in Arizona Stadium as the Wildcats were delivering a knockout blow of historical proportions.

The punch that put an exclamation point on the victory was Chuck Cecil’s 106-yard interception for a touchdown early in the fourth quarter. The play, officially listed at 100 yards, is the greatest play in the history of the program.

The Sun Devils were 9-0-1 entering the game, already clinching a spot in their first Rose Bowl, and were challenging for a national championship. The Wildcats (7-2) had not beaten their arch-rivals this convincingly since 1964 when Jim LaRue’s team pounded Frank Kush’s 8-1 team 30-6 in Tucson.

The victory was the fifth straight by the Wildcats over their archrival during “The Streak” and earned them a berth in the Aloha Bowl against North Carolina, in which they won to notch their first bowl victory in school history.

The Sun Devils failed to notch their first undefeated regular season since 1975, when they went 11-0.

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