How many times will Mike Stoops be celebrating this season? Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Arizona coach Mike Stoops, not even 30 seconds into his first weekly news conference of the season, said, “We’re tired of talking about it; we’re ready to go out and see what we’ve got.”

Amen to that.

If he’s tired of talking about it, I’m tired of writing about it after covering all of camp and posting 23 Wildcats-related stories in the past 23 hours.

There is only one thing left in our 24 Hours of Football Blogging series:

The season prediction.

From the beginning of camp until now, I might be slightly more optimistic about the Wildcats’ chances, and would be more so if not for the late-camp ACL tear of cornerback Jonathan McKnight. Will that injury cost a victory at some point in the season?

Arizona held two public scrimmages, neither of which was particularly instructive; these things are always vanilla. There were some visible tweaks, though, which you should see soon, perhaps Saturday night in the opener against NAU.

We saw some Pistol-style offense — with a running back behind the quarterback in the shotgun formation, and it looks as if first year full-time defensive coordinator Tim Kish will be more aggressive along the defensive front this season.

Some of those strategic modifications add to the unpredictability of an Arizona season that I consider already hard to predict. Anything from four to eight wins in the regular season wouldn’t surprise me. As Stoops says, this team is an odd mix of veterans and youngsters. The presence of the veterans tells me eight victories. The youth suggests four is closer to the mark.

Split the difference?

Let’s take Arizona’s three toughest games — Oklahoma State, Stanford, Oregon — and just give the Cats a loss. Let’s give UA wins for the bottom two — NAU and Louisiana-Lafayette.

That leaves seven games up for grabs.

Arizona isn’t good enough to run away and hide from Pac-12 teams. Neither is Arizona so outclassed that Pac-12 teams can face-plant the Cats into the turf.

The Wildcats played five conference games last season that were decided by eight points or less. Toss-ups, basically. They played seven league games in 2009 that were decided by eight points or less.

They are 6-6 in those close games. Win some, lose some. What do you expect?

If Arizona wins four of its seven conference “toss-up” games against teams not named Stanford and Oregon, it would be doing pretty well this season. And that would mean a six-win season.

It’s enticing to bet on a little bit more because of the prolific passing game, but it’s not wise to do so because of the inexperience on the offensive line. Arizona’s dispersal of experienced talent among its position groups just isn’t quite in sync.

The future looks bright beyond 2011 because the offensive and defensive lines project to grow up together and be something fierce, and Arizona has a quarterback succession plan with (perhaps) Matt Scott in 2012, and Tom Savage in 2012 and 2013. There appear to be no long-term issues in the secondary, at receiver or at running back.

But for now … let’s call this a 6-6 season.

Anybody up for a trip to New Mexico Bowl in Albuquerque?

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 24th installment of our 24 Hours of Arizona Football Blogging. Miss anything? Check out the entire series with the “24 hours of blogging” tag.

John Fina with the Buffalo Bills in 2001. Photo by Rick Stewart/Allsport

I caught up after Wednesday’s practice with former Arizona Wildcat standout John Fina, who will be the analyst on Saturday’s telecast of UA’s season-opener against Northern Arizona.

Fina, a left tackle, was a 1991 first-round draft pick and played in 10 seasons with the Buffalo Bills before finishing up with one year with the Cardinals.

I started our conversation by asking him about the Wildcats’ all-new offensive line, especially the redshirt freshmen at tackles — Fabbians Ebbele on the right side and Mickey Baucus on the left.

Q: When you’re looking at a young tackle, what do you want to see?

FINA: “If I’m their coach, if I’m Robert Anae, I want to see them working their technique when things are difficult. I want to see a reflection of the things I am coaching, the solid technical movements that when a game is tight in the fourth quarter will enhance their play. Nothing is worse than guys who abandon technique. That’s what I would want. … I had one coach tell me, ‘I don’t care how strong you are, if you’re technique is gone in the fourth quarter, you’re done.’”

Q: Other than what you mentioned, what are the pitfalls for a young offensive tackle in his first game?

FINA: “Well, the butterflies are No. 1. And then the first time you get beat, you question your technique because you’re frustrated that you got beat. Then, your first mental mistake, you’re going to question your resolve. Through a combination of those three things, you get a tendency to start doubting yourself before there is any real reason to, and you can’t let the doubt creep in. Instead of panicking and freaking out, you have to come back to your basic skill set — make sure your kick-step is appropriate, have your eyes in the right place. Can you carry those fundamentals through the game regardless of the ebb and flow?”

Q: What are your thoughts on UA’s tackles after seeing them in practices and scrimmages?

FINA: “There is clearly potential. They’re excited, they’re young. You like to have that. And they’re coached well. It’s obvious. You come out here and you see the things they are doing, the drills they are doing, and you say, ‘There is no reason these guys can’t go out on the field and play the way they’re coached and have success.’ I’ve been on the other side of the coin, where I’ve have such poor coaching that I would walk down to the field and say, ‘I don’t know if we can win a game.’ … I’ve sat in the locker room and thought, ‘We have a 1 percent chance. Maybe.’ It was that bad.”

Q: It looks like you had an opportunity to speak to the offensive line after practice.

FINA: “Yeah, I told them that obviously everybody is stacking up against you guys as a group. So all that means is there is opportunity. Don’t point fingers. Come together. I told them, you guys could be responsible for something amazing, arguably miraculous.”

Q: Other than whatever happens on the offensive line, what would be most encouraging for you to see Saturday night?

FINA: “I want to see the secondary play with great confidence. I don’t mean taking chances, I just mean great coverage play after play. I want to see an active defensive line, and I want to see Keola Antolin get 25 touches in this game. We know Nick (Foles) can throw the ball, and the receivers are the envy of the entire Division I, so there’s no question (about the passing game). I don’t say they need a great running game because this isn’t I-formation and they’re not running a pro set, but they need a smart running game. Take what they give you. You need only 3 1/2 to 4 to 5 yards per run. That’s what most people forget about football.”

Saturday’s game will be shown live starting at 7 p.m. on Fox Sports Arizona and KWBA-58. KGUN-9 will have a replay at 10:35 p.m. Dave Sitton will handle the play-by-play.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 23rd installment of our 24 Hours of Arizona Football Blogging — one post at the top of every hour. Keep checking back at TucsonCitizen.com through Friday at 11 a.m. or follow the entire series with the “24 hours of blogging” tag.

Perhaps all you need to get fired up for the Arizona Wildcats season is the above video.

Nick Foles is the face of the Arizona program (more below on how that face looks) and he has the talent to be the first Wildcat drafted as a quarterback since backup John Conner in the 10th round of the 1985 draft (more on that below, too).

“Even more confidence,” quarterbacks coach Frank Scelfo said of changes in Foles from last season.

“He’s embraced the leadership role, and it’s coming out. That’s the big thing. He wants this. … He wants to win right now, and he feels we can do that. He believes in these guys. He says this is the closest group of guys since he’s been there. That’s important.”

As Arizona puts the final touches on preparation for Saturday’s opener against NAU, gets ready for the season, here are three things about Foles and then a bunch of links to other stories about him us and various other sources.

1. He has trimmed his hair.

Trimmed, not cut. Foles is a little less scruffy that last year, which sounds like a trifle, although Scelfo says it’s not. The quarterbacks coach predicts Foles, as he gets nearer to postseason workouts and interviews with potential NFL employers, will wear his hair shorter and shorter.

For quarterbacks, image matters.

Scelfo last year made a point to Foles by showing him before-and-after pictures of Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who came back from his legal troubles projecting a cleaner image.

“I’m still growing the hair out a little bit,” Foles said. “I always cut it a little bit before the season. I’ll still grow the beard out a little bit, and I’m sure by game three, you’ll be thinking differently of me. …

“But I do know the quarterback is the face of the franchise. He has to be the one selling a lot of jerseys, doing a lot of things, and he has to look the part, act the part.”

2. He is intrigued by coaching.

Foles worked as a camp counselor at the Manning Passing Academy in Thibodaux, La., this summer, helping coach kids from 8th, 9th and 10th grades.

“I was a newer counselor, so I got the young ones which was actually probably good because they actually listened to me,” Foles said.

“I think I found another passion. I love this game and I want to play this game as long as I can, but just coaching kids and trying to develop them in a couple of days, I had a blast. But I also realized why coaches drink those energy drinks all day. I was going through four energy drinks a day to keep going.”

3. He has to win over some NFL scouts

Rob Rang, a senior draft analyst for NFLDraftScout.com, hasn’t been as high on Foles as some analysts.

NFLDraftScout.com has Foles as the ninth-best available quarterback for the 2012 draft, and Rang notes that in the spring the National Football Scouting service — which feeds early information to NFL some NFL teams — rated Foles in the seventh-round range.

“I do know some scouts who are very intrigued by him, and they think the offense is limiting his opportunities to show off his arm,” Rang said.

“And then there are some scouts — and quite frankly, scouts I respect a little bit more — who have some real reservations about his arm strength. But you get him in an all-star game, and who knows what happens?

“He certainly looks like a quarterback in terms of he’s a big, strong kid. He’s can physically hold up to NFL pass rushers.”

Preseason links:

TucsonCitizen.com: Stoops to Foles: Get the lulls out

TucsonCitizen.com: More than a spread QB: Foles soaking up NFL-style training

TucsonCitizen.com: Foles not getting enough respect?

TucsonCitizen.com: Passing game takes aim at several school records

TucsonCitizen.com: Out of the whey: Nutrition changes fuel Foles

TucsonCitizen.com: Foles’ leadership helps make UA a ‘Band of Brothers’

Arizona Daily Star: Expect Foles to say ‘Go deep’ a lot this fall

Arizona Daily Star: Summer job gives Foles confidence

Arizona Daily Wildcat: The evolution of Nick Foles

FoxSportsArizona.com: Arizona counting on Foles for success

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 22nd installment of our 24 Hours of Arizona Football Blogging — one post at the top of every hour. Keep checking back at TucsonCitizen.com through Friday at 11 a.m. or follow the entire series with the “24 hours of blogging” tag.

Mohammed Usman

Mohammed Usman recounts his junior college exploits with a big smile, talking about sacking Cam Newton.

“That is a source of pride,” Usman said.

Usman, a new starter at defensive end for the Arizona Wildcats, will soon get a chance to add notches against Stanford’s Andrew Luck and a bunch of other top-flight quarterbacks on UA’s schedule. The production of Usman and the team’s other new starting end, C.J. Parish, will be critical to the defense’s success.

“It’s my last time to prove myself at the Division I level and show everybody I am capable of moving up to the next level,” said Usman, a senior who transferred from Navarro Community College in Texas after the 2009 season.

“I’m going to hold my own. I’m going to make sure every play the quarterback feels me, knows I am coming off that edge and make him think twice about running the ball my way. I have to instill that.

“Don’t run it my way, don’t throw it my way, don’t look my way, don’t even speak my way. My side is my side. That’s my edge. I don’t want anybody over there.”

Usman will get his chance to back up his words under the stadium lights and in the glow of the gigantic video board at Arizona Stadium on Saturday night against NAU.

Coaches have delivered positive reviews about Usman through camp.

“He’s just explosive,” said head coach Mike Stoops.

“He’s smart,” said defensive ends coach Jeff Hammerschmidt.

“He’s a specimen,” said Joe Salave’a, who oversees the entire defensive line.

That he is. Listed at 6-2, he’s not a tall and rangy. He’s thick, muscles bulging everywhere, spread over 245 pounds.

“All I do is work hard,” he said.

He spent his true freshman season as a backup defensive end at Houston, but the NCAA questioned the score on his entrance exam, a problem that dogged him through his transfer to Arizona. He was deemed ineligible for nine games, and then he missed a 10th because of a knee injury.

Usman played in the final three games of last season, making two tackles.

So, this is his only chance to prove himself over a full season.

There isn’t much other choice for Arizona. There is no experience behind Usman and Parish, who each have just a little of it.

“I’m blessed to be in this position I am in now,” he said, “and I’m going to take every day like it’s my last.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 21st installment of our 24 Hours of Arizona Football Blogging — one post at the top of every hour. Keep checking back at TucsonCitizen.com through Friday at 11 a.m. or follow the entire series with the “24 hours of blogging” tag.

Wide receiver Dan Bucker says he's ready to roll after sitting out last season. Photo by Michael Chow/The Arizona Republic

The Arizona football team has no shortage of overarching concerns, including inexperience on both lines and a brutally tough early schedule.

Now, let’s look at three players who are X-factors. Three players who will have big roles to start the season.

Three players who, well, I have lingering doubts about.

WR Dan Buckner

Arizona, so deep at receiver, can have a great corps of pass-catchers without Buckner, but the plan all along has been to have Buckner and senior Juron Criner as unstoppable 6-foot-4 bookends on opposite sides.

The Texas transfer has proven he can play at this level, catching 44 passes for 445 yards and four touchdowns on the Longhorns’ team that advanced to the BCS championship game after the 2009 regular season.

At his best, he’s the insurance against defenses over-scheming to take away Criner. At his worst, he’ll be just another guy, not showing enough consistency, except for how much his mouth runs while he’s on the field.

At one particularly spirited fall practice, with the volume turned up to 11 on both sides of the ball, quarterback Nick Foles had to come to the sideline, grab Buckner around the helmet and maneuver him a few steps back while exhorting him to cool down.

Buckner missed the team’s final two scrimmages (he had complained about a possible concussion), but the thought is that Buckner has a chance to be a “gamer.”

“Dan started to come on in the last week,” Stoops said Monday. “I thought he started to show some improvement.”

Said Buckner: “I didn’t have the beginning of camp I wanted to, but as we’re getting close to game time, I’m ready to play.”

CB Shaquille Richardson

The sophomore steps in as a starter for the injured Jonathan McKnight, and Arizona is lucky to have a third cornerback as talented as Richardson. That said, there was a reason why McKnight and senior Trevin Wade were running with the first team.

Richardson sometimes struggled in deep coverage during practices, and Stoops often has lamented how his team gave up too many big passing plays last season. This will be an area to watch early in the season, with Oklahoma State quarterback Brandon Weeden and Stanford’s Andrew Luck on deck in the first few weeks.

“We have three corners who can start anywhere. I viewed all three of them as starters,” said secondary coach Ryan Walters.

“Obviously, Jonathan was playing lights out, but at the same time Shaquille and Trevin are top-tier corners in my opinion. Shaq, right after it happened, was like, ‘Hey, I’m ready and I already know what I have to do.’

“I didn’t expect anything less from him. Physically, he’s definitely impressive. And he’s starting to compete play in and play out.”

PK Jaime Salazar

Salazar didn’t really wrestle the starting position away from Alex Zendejas in camp. It was more like Salazar just picked it up off the ground after Zendejas dropped it.

Salazar, a transfer from Trinity Valley Community College in Texas, says he wants to be “100 percent from 45 yards and in.” Arizona fans would be ecstatic if he was 100 percent from 19 yards and in, converting all his extra points.

Salazar said it himself — he’s clutch. We have no way of knowing right now.

What we can surmise is that the coaches are not able to trust Zendejas after his late-season struggles and inconsistency. If Salazar doesn’t provide a comfort level in the kicking game, will Zendejas get another shot?

Or perhaps the better option will to be to just go for it on fourth down inside the opponents’ 30.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 20th installment of our 24 Hours of Arizona Football Blogging — one post at the top of every hour. Keep checking back at TucsonCitizen.com through Friday at 11 a.m. or follow the entire series with the “24 hours of blogging” tag.

NAU RB Zach Bauman looks for running room against Arizona State last season. Photo by Mark J. Rebilas-US PRESSWIRE

Related: Arizona-NAU notebook: UA ready for youth movement

Beware the little brothers.

The Arizona Wildcats open their season Saturday night against visiting Northern Arizona, from the Football Championship Subdivision, the lower tier of Division I.

The Lumberjacks, who were 6-5 last season, are used to playing up, having played a Football Bowl Subdivision team in each of the past 10 years.

They have lost them all.

That included five losses to Arizona in that span and a 41-20 defeat at Arizona State last season. The Lumberjacks were within a touchdown late in the third quarter, however, and held the Sun Devils to only 56 yards.

“They played Arizona State well a year ago,” Arizona coach Mike Stoops said. “They have played us well for a long period of time down here. We are certainly aware of what kind of team they have.”

Stoops also has reminded his team that, as always, the Cats will see a motivated NAU team, whose roster is full of in-state players eager to make a statement that they should have been recruited by top-level schools.

“They look forward to this game in a lot of ways,” Stoops said. “It’s a huge opportunity for them to showcase their program.”

Stoops notes the Lumberjacks skill players, such as 1,000-yard rusher Zach Bauman and receiver Austin Shanks, who caught 65 passes for 613 yards and three touchdowns last season. Both are preseason All-Big Sky selections.

NAU lost five of its top six tackles. Linebacker Scott McKeever made 52 stops last season, and defensive end Isaac Bond, a preseason all-conference pick, had 5.5 sacks.

Quotes from Stoops about throwing the ball all over the stadium has reached NAU coach Jerome Souers.

“Arizona has undergone some changes in their schematics,” he said.

“They’re throwing the ball a lot more. Coach Stoops has traditionally had an outfit that can run the ball and throw the ball, but they’re talking about throwing the ball like 50 to 60 times a game. …

“We’re not sure exactly what they are going to look like.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 19th installment of our 24 Hours of Arizona Football Blogging — one post at the top of every hour. Keep checking back at TucsonCitizen.com through Friday at 11 a.m. or follow the entire series with the “24 hours of blogging” tag.

I was driving south through campus the other day … and there it was.

The biggest, brightest, most wonderful TV I’d ever seen. Love at first sight.

The athletic department was testing out its new 5,356-square foot video board at Arizona Stadium, showing footage of the team’s final fall scrimmage. Running back Daniel Jenkins had just twisted his left ankle and had crumpled to the turf in magnificent HD.

Jenkins is doubtful for Saturday’s scoreboard debut — otherwise known as the season-opener vs. NAU — because of that sprained ankle. That will delay his hopes of galloping into the end zone and then staring up to watch just how brilliant he looked doing it.

“I try to focus on the game, but that thing goes sideline to sideline. It’s going to be hard not to look,” Jenkins said.

“That video board is wild. I think it’s going to bring a great environment to our fans. I’m excited to see how our fans react to it, and the Zona Zoo. I’m excited, man. I’m excited.”

Senior safety Robert Golden tweeted after seeing the board in action: “This thing soooooo clear in person… After a big play saturday, yall might see the #Goldenshuffle”

KVOA-4 Sports Director Ryan Recker tweeted that senior cornerback Trevin Wade told him that one of the mottos in the secondary is, “Don’t get beat or you’ll be in HD”.

A couple of things about the board:

– It is not the largest in the Pac-12, as is sometimes reported. USC is also debuting a new board, spanning 6,000 square feet, on Saturday at Los Angeles Coliseum. But Arizona’s mega-board is still one of the biggest in college football, and rates, according to ever-reliable wikipedia, as the second-largest in an on-campus facility. That would behind Texas, which just has to have the biggest.

– Athletic director Greg Byrne jokes that “I think everybody but the officials will think it’s a heck of a thing,” but, according to Pac-12 rules, teams can show a replay only once. Mike Stoops better not miss his chance to look at those questionable calls before he turns his evil glare to the refs.

OK, so other than the scoreboard, what is there to look forward to?

2. The September home schedule — Stoops has defeated a ranked opponent in each of his first seven seasons. Games against preseason Top 10 Stanford and Oregon are opportunities as well as obstacles.

3. The rest of the Pac-12 South is relatively lousy — Could a 6-3 record with the right combination of victories win the division?

4. A record-setting passing attack — Remember when Arizona fans hated winning by scores like 10-7? That they complained 20 times a game about “Mike Streidnig up the middle?” Now, you hear, “Why do we run that screen pass 30 times a game?”

5. The possibility of snow in Boulder on Nov. 12 — As long as you don’t have to be in it, it would make Arizona’s first conference journey to Boulder that much better. (I can hear echoes of Dick Tomey exhorting his 1988 team in Seattle, “The harder it rains, the better we play!”)

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 18th installment of our 24 Hours of Arizona Football Blogging — one post at the top of every hour. Keep checking back at TucsonCitizen.com through Friday at 11 a.m. or follow the entire series with the “24 hours of blogging” tag.

There was a mix-up in the Arizona secondary. Cornerback Robert Golden gave a half-hearted chuck to Oklahoma State receiver Justin Blackmon and let him run by.

Problem was, there was no safety to help.

Oklahoma State quarterback Brandon Weeden easily connected with Blackmon down field … and then the real fun began.

Blackmon, nearing the goal line all alone, ran along the goal line, crossing the hashmarks from right to left before dipping into the end zone as defensive back Adam Hall closed in.

It was a 71-yard touchdown.

It wouldn’t be — at least it shouldn’t be — this season.

The major rule change in college football is that any taunting penalty that occurs before a touchdown will be a 15-yard infraction at the spot of the foul. In other words, no touchdown.

Under the old rule, the penalty was applied on the conversion attempt or on the ensuing kickoff.

Officials whiffed in Blackmon’s case by not assessing a penalty to his cross-field run (clearly, he was drawing attention to himself and not merely celebrating with his teammates).

In fact, officials whiffed so badly on the play that Rogers Redding, the national coordinator for college football officiating, was quoted in the Daily Oklahoman this summer as saying that Blackmon also deserved an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty because he then performed for the crowd after scoring.

You know what two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties would have meant? Automatic ejection from the game.

Wildcats coach Mike Stoops said he knows one penalty should have called, for sure.

“That’s excessive. That’s taunting the other team,” Stoops said of Blackmon’s sideways jaunt. “I thought he taunted us. I didn’t quite understand that. But there are a lot of things I don’t understand.”

Understand that this rule figures to be a hot-button topic at some point in the season. The spirit of the rule is great; the enforcement of it will be haphazard at best.

What looks like taunting to one official won’t appear to be excessive to another.

“It’s like indisputable evidence,” Stoops said, referring to the standards of overturning a call on replay review. “What the hell is indisputable evidence? That can be whatever you want it to be.”

And if this new rule ends up costing a team a game … well, at least it will be good for the tumult and the shouting on sports talk radio.

“It’s a ridiculous rule in my estimation,” Stoops said.

“It’s too excessive for the situations we’re in, and kids at times do get caught up in the emotion of the game.

“There is a difference between taunting and celebrating. Taunting is one thing — you stick the ball in somebody’s face, then I have no remorse for somebody. But somebody who celebrates or accidentally spikes the ball, I don’t know if that’s necessarily showing the other team up.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 17th installment of our 24 Hours of Arizona Football Blogging — one post at the top of every hour. Keep checking back at TucsonCitizen.com through Friday at 11 a.m. or follow the entire series with the “24 hours of blogging” tag.

The MUSS (Mighty Utah Student Section) awaits Pac-12 foes. Photo by Russ Isabella-US PRESSWIRE

The Pac-12 debuted Thursday night with two games that won’t show up on anybody’s best-of lists. ASU and Utah won against lower-division teams.

There are some of us who think any college football is good college football, but some — like these 10 games involving the Pac-12 — are, well, more good than others:

10. Oregon at Arizona (Sept. 24)
Can’t forget the thriller in Tucson in 2009, and this is one of only four true road games for the Ducks. Others would put Oregon’s rivalry game at Washington on a list like this, but the matchups vs. the Cats have been more competitive.

If I had to pick it now: Oregon 48, Arizona 35

9. USC at Notre Dame (Oct. 22)
USC had the edge in coaching for several years. Roles have reversed.

If I had to pick it now: Notre Dame 27, USC 24

8. Missouri at Arizona State (Sept. 9)
If the Sun Devils win this one, I’ll have to put them on my AP Top 25 ballot.

If I had to pick it now: Arizona State 34, Missouri 27

7. Arizona State at Utah (Oct.8)
Winner gets the tiebreaker edge in the Pac-12 South? The Utes have won 22 consecutive home games, including Thursday’s victory over Montana State.

If I had to pick it now: Arizona State 31, Utah 28

6. USC at Oregon (Nov. 19)
On the field, these are two teams coming and going. The Ducks rule the league the way the Trojans did just a few years ago. Off the field, these might be two programs coming and going — USC off NCAA sanctions in 2012, the Ducks going on?

If I had to pick it now: Oregon 48, USC 27

5. Washington at Nebraska (Sept. 17)
The Huskies de-cleated the Huskers in the Holiday Bowl (really, can you imagine a team not showing up to play in the Holiday Bowl?) and got a surprising split of the season series. Here’s the rubber match, with the 2010 postseason result putting more national attention on this matchup, which could do wonders for the Pac-12 reputation. Or not.

If I had to pick it now: Nebraska 42, Washington 24

4. Utah at USC (Sept. 10)
Perhaps not the sexiest matchup on the list, but bonus points for being the first Pac-12 conference game. It begins to answer the question of whether the Utes really belong in this ritzy conference zip code.

If I had to pick it now: USC 31, Utah 24

3. Notre Dame at Stanford (Nov. 26)
This comes on the final weekend of the regular season, and it’s not hard to see each team in the running for a BCS berth. The Irish are playing big-boy football once again under second-year coach Brian Kelly, and Andrew Luck gets one final go-around in front of the home crowd.

If I had to pick it now: Stanford 38, Notre Dame 35

2. Oregon vs. LSU, Dallas (Sept. 3)
I’m not a huge fan of suspended LSU quarterback Jordan Jefferson, so that doesn’t bother me too much. The Tigers still have the hosses to make this an Oregon-Auburn kind of slog from last season’s BCS title game. Sorry to bring this up, Arizona fans: The last time two AP top five teams met on the opening weekend was Arizona at Penn State in 1999.

If I had to pick it now (and I do): LSU 27, Oregon 24

1. Oregon at Stanford (Nov. 12)
Oregon won the speed vs. power matchup last season, zooming from behind to win 52-31. This looks the biggie — for the Pac-12 North, the right to play in the league title game and, perhaps, the ability to go on to compete for the national championship.

If I had to pick it now: Oregon 45, Stanford 33

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 16th installment of our 24 Hours of Arizona Football Blogging — one post at the top of every hour. Keep checking back at TucsonCitizen.com through Friday at 11 a.m. or follow the entire series with the “24 hours of blogging” tag.

Wendell Neal talks with quarterback Nick Foles before last season's game vs. The Citadel. Photo by Chris Morrison-US PRESSWIRE

The technology of football helmets keeps changing, keeps improving, and Arizona equipment manager Wendell Neal could talk to you about from here till Sunday.

“We’ll never prevent all concussions,” he said one day last month. “What we’re trying to do in this profession is just try to minimize the risk. It’s all about the odds.”

Neal has a suggestion for improving those odds.

Less is more.

“No one likes my idea, but I would take the face mask off the helmets. That would change a lot of the neck injuries and head injuries,” he said.

“My opinion is that it would force people to arm tackle and not use the head to spear and to not throw your face and head in there.

“And I don’t think anyone does it maliciously and purposefully, it’s just human nature. Technology is so good that you feel almost invincible.

“These facemasks, to me, they went from being defensive to offensive.”

Neal has one thing wrong.

He isn’t the only one who likes the idea.

Penn State coach Joe Paterno, on a Big Ten coaches teleconference with the media last fall, said: “I’ve been saying for years, we should get rid of the facemask. … It’s a weapon, guys are fearless.”

Savvy UA fans recently had reason for Internet happiness as Neal resumed his Arizona Equipment Blog after a summer hiatus. Look for behind-the-scenes photos and a unique perspective on the team.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 15th installment of our 24 Hours of Arizona Football Blogging — one post at the top of every hour. Keep checking back at TucsonCitizen.com through Friday at 11 a.m. or follow the entire series with the “24 hours of blogging” tag.