Senior center Colin Baxter warms up with QB Nick Foles before the Aug. 21 scrimmage/Photo by Mark Evans, TucsonCitizen.com

Arizona senior center Colin Baxter has a little problem.

There’s nothing wrong with his health or his reputation. He’s ready to go for Friday’s opener at Toledo, and he has picked up all manner of preseason All-American honors, including recent second-team honors from Rivals.com and third-team honors from CBS Sports.com.

He’s a team captain. He’s probably the “nastiest” of the offensive linemen, according to quarterback Nick Foles.

Here’s the thing: He’s listed at 6-4 and 295 pounds … but he might not really be that tall … and that could be the problem. Not for this season at Arizona, but his future beyond it in the NFL. He and offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh admit that.

“Everybody looks at that,” Bedenbaugh said of height.

“Colin is right at 6-3. He does a heck of a job for us, but, obviously, if you get a guy as talented as him, you’d like him as tall and as big as could be.”

While Baxter spent the offseason getting bigger and stronger under the direction of strength coach Corey Edmond — five days a week — he admits with a chuckle, “It’s hard to make myself grow taller.”

He lists his positive attributes: “Hard work. I’m tough. I don’t get hurt. Play hard. All those kinds of things. And I feel like I’m a pretty smart player, but I’m a little on the small side.”

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This is Arizona coach Mike Stoops’ seventh season with the Wildcats, but the first without younger brother Mark by his side.

Mark Stoops, who had been the defensive coordinator at UA, left after last season to take the same job with first-year Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher.

Early in fall camp, when Arizona’s practices were open, it was clear that Mike was active and fully engaged in his young defense, which is replacing seven starters. Asked what it has been like without Mark this preseason, Mike laughed and said, “I’m more hoarse than I usually am.”

Mark is putting his vocal chords and energy to use with the Seminoles, while Mike created co-defensive coordinator positions at Arizona. Stoops promoted linebackers Tim Kish and brought in Colorado assistant Greg Brown, who also will coach the secondary.

When I asked Brown earlier this month if he would be inclined to use more man-to-man schemes than Arizona was accustomed to under Mark Stoops, he said:

“This has nothing to do with me. This is Mike Stoops’ defense … Make no mistake, this is Mike Stoops’ defense. Mike has had the highest level of success. We’re not going to be changing much, I’ll tell you that.”

We’ll see about that last part, starting Friday at Toledo.

Keenyn Crier's career average as a three-year starter: 42.9 yards.
Photo by Mark J. Rebilas, US Presswire

Arizona punter Keenyn Crier wears No. 47 by chance.

“I wore No. 7 in high school, but when I got here, Willie Tuitama was 7,” Crier said. “I guess they couldn’t give me that because he was big-time.”

Good guess.

“So they just gave me 47, and I was like, ‘That’s fine,’” he said. “It looks nice on a uniform.”

Even better on a stat sheet.

For Crier’s personal goals this season, look no further than the number on his uniform. Averaging 47 yards and putting up an average hang time of 4.7 seconds would suit the senior just fine. Well, more than fine.

His punting average last season was 41.5 yards, the lowest of his career. He was at 43.7 yards as a freshman and 43.9 yards as a sophomore.

“I would say my average hang time last year was 4.4 or 4.5,” he said.

“It’s doable,” he said of his “47″ goals. “I should be able to do it. Just gotta work and focus. If I focus, then I can do it. No problem.”

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Arizona women’s basketball coach Niya Butts said “she was kind of shocked” when she learned that her high school was going to retire her jersey number.

Her coach, Evelyn Wright, said the honor was overdue.

Butts, the leading scorer and rebounder at Americus High School, will be at a ceremony at Americus High School on Friday evening, when her No. 23 will be retired. The mayor will be there to deliver a proclamation.

“It’s certainly an honor to be recognized,” she said Thursday. “I look at it as an opportunity to go back and really just thank anybody who had anything to do with my career at Americus High School.”

Butts, 32, would go on to Tennessee, helping the Volunteers win national championships in 1997 and 1998. She is entering her third season as Arizona’s head coach.

“She could play any position we needed her to,” Wright told the Americus Times Recorder.

“With her size, she was a great ball handler, a great passer, and she could just do a lot of things with the basketball. She was probably our No. 1 defensive player. She could block shots, rebound and make the outlet pass for the fast break. She was All-Region, she was all everything. She was in control.”

Americus has a population of just over 16,000, and Butts said “life was pretty simple,” growing up there.

“I went to school, did what I was supposed to be, went to basketball practice, and that was about it,” she said.

“It was a community there. If they weren’t related to you, it didn’t really matter. If you weren’t doing what you were supposed to do, I appreciated the next person saying, ‘Hey, you need to get yourself on track.’

“And no one minded doing that because it was all a family. And that is what I appreciated growing up in Americus.”

Rob Gronkowski streches for a 14-yard touchdown reception in the first half vs. the St. Louis Rams/Photo by Stew Milne, US Presswire

Former Arizona tight end Rob Gronkowski, who gave up two years of eligibility to enter the NFL Draft, appears to have made the right decision.

(It’s right about here where Arizona fans can sigh and wonder what could have been.)

Anyway, Gronk had a super exhibition game Thursday night, catching two touchdown passes from Tom Brady in the New England Patriots’ 36-35 loss to the St. Louis Rams. Gronkowski had a 14-yard TD reception late in the first half and a 20-yard touchdown catch early in the fourth quarter.

On the first score, according to the PatsPulpit blog, “Gronkowski had linebacker James Laurinaitis draped on his ankles, yet Gronkowski kept driving his legs, and literally jumped his way six yards into the end zone.”

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Juron Criner beats USC's Josh Pinkard for a touchdown late in last season's game in Los Angeles/Photo by Gary A. Vasquez, US Presswire

Arizona’s injury news was almost all good as the team began “game-week” preparations Wednesday for the Sept. 3 opener at Toledo.

Leading receiver Juron Criner was back at practice after missing two-and-a-half weeks with a concussion/mouth injury. And projected starting offensive guards Conan Amituanai (knee) and Vaughn Dotsy (back) were back in action after missing all of camp.

Regarding the guards, coach Mike Stoops said, “If they keep progressing as they did today, then hopefully they will be in the starting lineup.”

The only player not back at practice is fullback Taimi Tutogi, who suffered an ankle injury Aug. 9.

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Matt Scott has 'complete understanding of everything that is going on,' according to one UA assistant coach/Photo by Brad Allis, WildcatSportsReport.com

It’s desperate times around the Arizona football program. And we’re not even talking about the state of the defense.

When Saturday’s scrimmage was cut short by lightning, the Meet the Team part of the evening was canceled, which meant a usually generous time for media interviews was reduced to about 10 minutes.

There was no media availability Sunday, none Monday, and, as it turns out, none Tuesday because practice was canceled after storms rolled through Tucson.

What I’m trying to say is that we’re running low on stories.

Sure, most of us plan ahead, but only brief access to the team in the past four days has whittled the inventory of features, themes and ways to say that the defense is still a work in progress.

It’s not just me. Ryan Finley’s story in Wednesday’s Arizona Daily Star about quarterbacks coach Frank Scelfo was from an interview that took place, I believe, last Thursday. I used part of that interview for a story at FoxSportsArizona.com last Friday.

Desperate times.

Anyway, with any luck, the team will practice Wednesday and we’ll all get fresh sound bites and story ideas afterward. In the meantime, let me shake out the notebooks and see what falls out:

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Colorado won’t be leaving the Big 12 ahead of schedule. So, does the Pac-10 change its new logo to the Pac-11 for next season?

Utah is leaving the Mountain West Conference for the Pac-10, beginning next season. But the Buffs, according to the Boulder Daily Camera, will remain in the Big 12 for the next two season, as originally planned.

The Buffs were hoping to be able to wriggle out of their arrangement with the Big 12 a year away in order to go into their new conference with Utah hand-in-hand. Meanwhile, the Big 12 also will play with 11 teams in the 2011-12 school year, as Nebraska will leave for the Big Ten (which will really be 12).

According to the Daily Camera,

CU gave the Big 12 two years’ notice of its intention to leave the league back in June, meeting the criteria spelled out in Big 12 bylaws. The Buffs would have to forfeit 50 percent of conference distributions for those two years.

Nebraska and Utah made their conference realignment announcements after CU, leading to speculation about speeding up the time line for the Buffs to move by a year. Big 12 bylaws require schools to forfeit 80 percent of conference distributions with just one year notice of an intention to leave.

Big 12 officials have publicly quoted the 80 percent as the total CU will owe almost from the beginning, despite the fact the Buffs gave two years’ notice. …

The Pac-12 has agreed to help CU with some of the cost to switch leagues, but millions can be saved by simply remaining in the Big 12 an extra year. Colorado officials have estimated they could forfeit between $9 and $14.5 million in conference distributions.

Running back Greg Nwoko had a couple of big plays in Saturday night's storm-shortened scrimmage/Photo by Mark Evans, TucsonCitizen.com

Arizona got in only 20 minutes and 25 plays of its scrimmage Saturday night. Coach Mike Stoops wanted to see more … but, in another sense, he had seen enough.

At least, he had seen least enough to know that defense remains the overriding concern of these Wildcats, now 12 days away from the opening kickoff at Toledo.

“I was hoping we would be a little bit further along, but we have a lot of young players,” Stoops said after lightning cut short the scrimmage at Arizona Stadium.

“That correlates to some confusion. We have to eliminate some of the confusion so we can play faster and more effectively defensively.”

The team was scheduled to have Sunday and Monday off, but, given the abbreviated Saturday night, Stoops said he likely will hold a scrimmage during that time. That young back seven on defense needs the work.

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The Associated Press preseason poll is out — and the Arizona Wildcats appeared on five of the 60 ballots.

Overall, Arizona received 15 points, tied for 35th with Clemson. That was good for fifth-place among Pac-10 teams, behind Oregon (No. 11), USC (No. 14), Oregon State (No. 24) and Stanford (27th).

This all seems fairly reasonable to me. It’s about the mid-point of expectations for the Wildcats, perhaps a bit on the low side. I think Arizona, for example, has a chance to be closer to the 20th-best team in the country than the 50th-best team.

Not that it much matters. As will be repeated often, the window of opportunity is wide-open in the Pac-10 and we should be asking, “If not now, when?”

At least the writers’ poll didn’t include any goofy votes for Arizona State, as did the coaches’ poll. (The Wildcats were 29th in the USA Today coaches’ poll, in case you forgot.)

OK, so which of the football scribes voted for Arizona? Here they are:

Cole Harvey (No. 22). He is from the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph.

Jon Wilner (No. 22). The former Arizona Daily Star basketball beat writer (and my former colleague there), writes the informative College Hotline blog for the San Jose Mercury News.

Kirk Herbstreit (No. 22). ESPN’s Herbie always has the Wildcats on his radar.

Chip Cosby (No. 24). Cosby writes for the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader.

Tom Keegan (No. 25). He writes for the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal World.

A couple of other notes:

The state of Arizona always gets one vote in the AP poll, usually bouncing back and forth between the Phoenix and Tucson media. The Arizona Republic’s Doug Haller has the state’s vote this season.

How weird is it that Middle Tennessee receives votes, but Tennessee doesn’t? And Central Michigan has votes, but Michigan doesn’t.

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