UA assistant coach Jeff Hammerschmidt is working with perhaps the best group of defensive ends in the Pac-10/Photo by Nico Gimino

I caught up recently with Arizona assistant coach Jeff Hammerschmidt, who is in charge of the defensive ends and special teams. Not a bad gig this season.

At defensive end, he has senior starters Brooks Reed and Ricky Elmore, each capable of double-digit sack totals. And there is also senior D’Aundre Reed, often overlooked, but coaches consider him to be a co-starter.

In fact, D’Aundre Reed, at 6-4 and 258 pounds, has the right combination of size and speed to move to a defensive tackle position when the Wildcats want to go “Cheetah.” That’s the name of their speedy pass-rush package that the coaches experimented with in the spring … and they continue to do so in fall camp.

(Arizona worked on this scheme in its two-minute drill Monday night, with D’Aundre Reed and fellow end Apai Tuihalamaka moving inside.)

“It’s just a matter of getting comfortable with it,” Hammerschmidt said.

On special teams, punt returner Bug Wright and kick returner Travis Cobb each had a return touchdown last season. Senior punter Keenyn Crier (42.9-yard career average) has one of the best legs in the Pac-10. Sophomore placekicker Alex Zendejas’ last kick in a game beat Arizona State on the final play.

John Bonano is back to handle the kickoffs, and Hammerschmidt said the team will be adding a walk-on who can also kickoff and provide some depth at punter.

A few questions for Hammerschmidt:

(more…)

Nebraska has Ndamukong Suh, the Associated Press Player of the Year as a defensive tackle. The Cornhuskers have the enduring Blackshirts nickname for their defense.

They have a defense that ranks second nationally, allowing 11.23 points per game. They have a defense that gave up just 202 yards to Texas in the Big 12 championship game.

Earl Mitchell (making tackle) and Ricky Elmore (No. 44) have been big parts of a stout Arizona defensive line/Wildcat Sports Report photo

They have another defensive tackle, Jared Crick, who was All-Big 12 as a sophomore and had five sacks against Baylor this season. They have two more players who were first-team all-conference — cornerback Prince Amukamara and strong safety Larry Asante.

And what will Arizona’s defense counter with in the Holiday Bowl on Wednesday?

Although the bar wasn’t set high, this is UA’s best defensive line in at least a decade.

Defensive end Ricky Elmore finished the regular season with a Pac-10-best 10.5 sacks. Brooks Reed has been a factor since coming back from a mid-season injury. Defensive tackle Earl Mitchell is a possible mid-round NFL draft pick. Horton has been solid.

Arizona’s 34 sacks are the most since the 2001 season.

The Wildcats have been a self-described bunch of no-names all season — no first-team All-Pac-10 players on this unit — but that chip on their shoulder has served them well.

No need to brush it off now.

“Ndamukong Suh, he’s a crazy player,” said Arizona senior defensive tackle Donald Horton.

“He definitely plays hard and does his thing. But I feel that we have done, as a unit, just as much. At times, we can really dominate. There were times in the middle of the season when we got lackadaisical and fell off a bit, but I think we hit our stride the last couple of games and really tried to turn on the heat.”

Arizona will be trying to turn on the heat against a lukewarm Nebraska offense that grew increasingly conservative during the season, content to let its defense do the heavy lifting (and trying to avoid another eight-turnover disaster like the one in a 9-7 home loss to Iowa State).

After that, the Cornhuskers didn’t attempt more than 21 passes in any of their other six games. They scrapped the spread offense for a run-oriented attack, led by running back Roy Helu Jr. (1,139 rushing yards, 10 touchdowns).

Nebraska topped 300 total yards only twice in nine Big 12 games.

The team’s biggest playmaker is receiver Niles Paul, who has 36 receptions for 673 yards and is dangerous in the return game. Nebraska is expected use junior Zac Lee and true freshman Cody Green at quarterback.

“They’re not a complicated team offensively,” Horton said. “They don’t have a lot of shifts, and there aren’t a lot of adjustments we have to make. We just play our defense and be comfortable in it.”

The Wildcats don’t want to get too comfortable. Nebraska figures to be persistent with the run, pounding away, hoping to spring something big on the ground or play-action to Paul.

“They are very physical up front,” said UA defensive end Brooks Reed.

“They do a lot of traditional stuff. But if you can’t stop it, you can’t stop it. And they’re going to keep doing it until you can.”

It will be up to the no-names to stop it, to make a name in a game in which Suh is the undisputed star. He is the probable No. 1 pick in the 2010 NFL Draft … and when is the last time Arizona faced a defender this good?

Penn State linebacker LaVar Arrington in 1999? Washington defensive tackle Steve Emtman in the early 1990s?

Horton said his father has had words of advice when it comes to Suh.

“He said, ‘All the attention is going to be on him, but you’re going to be at the stage, too. Make a name for yourselves, too, as a defensive front,’” Horton said.

“In my heart, I’ve been using that as a challenge.”

Related links from TucsonCitizen.com’s Sports Network:
AG’s Wildcat Report: UA’s Horton hoping a dream comes true in Holiday Bowl

Wild About AZ Cats: UA’s offense more of a challenge for Pelini this time around

AG’s Wildcat Report: Wildcats ready to shed the blue helmets for Holiday Bowl

AG’s Wildcat Report: Holiday Bowl flashback: What the Nebraska ‘N’ really stood for

Wildcat Sports Report: Cats close to completing recruiting class

UASports.net: Breaking down the Holiday Bowl inside and out

Arizona ended the decade with its best defensive line since the late 1990s, but this was one of the major problem areas for the team this decade. The Arizona Wildcats were the only Pac-10 team this decade to not have a first-team all-league defensive lineman.

USC had a first-team all-league defensive lineman 11 times this decade. Oregon State was next with seven. The Wildcats haven’t had such a player since Joe Salave’a in 1997.

TucsonCitizen.com’s picks for Arizona football’s all-decade team on offense.

What the Cats have had this decade are two of the best at their position in the entire league — linebacker Lance Briggs (first-team all-conference in 2000, 2001 and 2002) and cornerback Antoine Cason (winner of the Jim Thorpe Award in 2007). Take your pick: One of these guys is your Arizona Defensive Player of the Decade.

Not to influence your selection, but Cason was chosen to SI.com’s All-Decade team in college football.

Note that one of the most prominent UA alums — New York Giants mega-millionaire linebacker Antonio Pierce — is absent. First of all, he played at UA for only one season of the decade (2000) when he had an honorable mention all-league season (77 tackles, 10 for loss). Good, not great.

Defensive end Joe Tafoya also played only year this decade, and it was nearly good enough to make the list. He was second-team All-Pac-10 in 2000, making 18 tackles for loss, which is a season high for Arizona this decade. (In general, I preferred an all-decade candidate who had a longer resume for the time frame.)

The defensive line is where there could be the most debate, mostly because there are few standouts. Others considered were Tafoya, Marcus Smith, Young Thompson, Yaniv Barnett, Louis Holmes (well, not really) and Ricky Elmore, whose 10.5-sack regular-season is fresh in everybody’s mind.

Here are our choices for UA’s All-Decade team for defense:

DE — Copeland Bryan (2002-05)
A very nice walk-on find for Arizona, Bryan developed into an NFL-caliber player by the time he left, coming up with 7.5 sacks and 10.5 tackles for loss as a senior. Finished with 14 career sacks.

DT — Lionel Dotson (2004-07)
“L Train” started 20 games in his first three seasons — a solid, if unspectacular performer in the middle of the line. He then played his way into an NFL prospect as a senior after a season with 50 tackles, including nine for loss and 6.5 sacks. That earned him second-team All-Pac-10 honors.

DT — Earl Mitchell (2006-2009)
Spent his first two seasons as an underused fullback/H-back/tight end before making the switch to defense. Big Earl had 40 tackles, including 1.5 sacks, in his first season at the position before earning second-team all-conference honors in 2009, making 12.5 tackles for loss with 6.5 sacks — big numbers for an interior lineman.

DE — Brooks Reed (2007-09)
Why Reed and not Elmore? Fair question. Reed missed about five games this season with an ankle injury, during which time Mike Stoops repeatedly referred to Reed as the team’s best pass rusher and kind of the glue of the line. Always a high-energy player, Reed ended up with two sacks and five tackles for loss, coming off a sophomore season in which he had eight sacks and made honorable-mention all-league.

Lance Briggs tackles ASU quarterback Andrew Walter in 2001/Tucson Citizen photo

LB — Lance Briggs (1999-2002)
Briggs nearly de-committed to USC on Signing Day 1999, but the Sacramento kid once described as the next Tedy Bruschi became one of the great Wildcat defenders. After playing running back as a true freshman in 1999, Briggs requested a move back to linebacker, where he posted 113 tackles as a sophomore, earning the first of three consecutive all-conference honors … which really says it all. He led the team in tackles (93 and 98) in each of the next two seasons before going on to a successful and lucrative career with the Chicago Bears.

LB — Spencer Larsen (2002, 2005-07)
Well-liked, well-spoken and a coach’s dream, the hard-working Larsen was the team’s defensive newcomer of the year in 2002 and then left for a two-year church mission. He overcame a knee injury upon his return in spring 2005, managing to pick up where he left off. Larsen had 131 tackles as a senior in an All-Pac-10 season, and his 312 career tackles are the most for a UA player this decade (and 15th-best all-time).

LB — Ronnie Palmer (2005-08)
More steady than flashy, Palmer started 41 games in his UA career. The middle linebacker led the team in tackles (85) and tackles for loss (11) in 2008, giving him career marks of 275 stops, including 21 for loss.

Antoine Cason returns an interception for a touchdown aganist Cal in 2006/Tucson Citizen photo

CB — Antoine Cason (2004-07)
He was the face of the Wildcats for a couple of seasons — photogenic, good with a quote and bringing a confident air to his battles with the league’s best receivers. Highlights include a 39-yard fourth-quarter interception return for a touchdown that fueled a 24-20 upset of No. 8 Cal in 2006, and scoring twice — on an interception return and a punt return — in a 34-24 upset of No. 2 Oregon in 2007. That latter game — on Thursday night on ESPN — propelled Cason to the Jim Thorpe Award, given to the nation’s top defensive back. His 15 career interceptions are fourth in UA history.

CB — Michael Jolivette (2000-03)
He’s the UA career leader in passes broken up (44), despite missing most of his junior season because of injury. He also was able to corral his fair share of passes, coming up with 12 career interceptions. Current UA sophomore Trevin Wade might end up being a better player, but had only one season as a starter this decade.

S — Darrell Brooks (2002-05)
His leadership and on-field play helped guide the Wildcats through some tough times. A four-year starter, Brooks made 295 tackles and four interceptions, earning second-team all-league honors as a junior and first-team recognition as a senior.

S — Michael Johnson (2005-06)
The junior college transfer was a key recruit for coach Mike Stoops, and he gets the nod here on the strength of his second-team All-Pac-10 season in 2006. Johnson had 107 tackles in two seasons, with five interceptions, and his physical style of play has served him well with the NFL’s New York Giants.

AP — Syndric Steptoe (2003-06)
Finished with 3,931 all-purpose yards, ninth in school history. He had 131 career catches for 1,584 yards; he scored twice on punt returns and returned 80 kicks for an average of nearly 22 yards.

P — Danny Baugher (2002-05)
A starter for nearly all of four seasons, Baugher has the highest season-average in school history — 47.5 yards on 37 attempts in 2005, when his season ended in the seventh game because of an ACL injury. He was leading the nation in punting at the time. His 225 punts are a school record.

The Arizona football team, in a phrase you will often hear for at least the next two weeks, controls its own destiny.

But here’s the thing: The Wildcats don’t even have to win all of their remaining four games to win the Pac-10.

They just have to win three.

As long as they win the right three.

After another wild day of Pac-10 play — Stanford upsets Oregon, Cal star running back Jahvid Best is injured, USC holds on to win at ASU — here are the league standings:

Oregon, 5-1
Arizona, 4-1
Stanford, 5-2
USC, 4-2
Oregon State, 4-2
California, 3-3
Arizona State, 2-4
Washington, 2-4
UCLA, 1-5
Washington State 0-6

Arizona has four games left — at Cal, vs. Oregon, at Arizona State and at USC. The Wildcats can lose one of those games — as long as it’s against Cal or ASU — and still be in control of their own destiny.

But they have to beat Oregon and USC for that to happen.

Here’s how it works:

An Arizona team that finishes 7-2 with victories over Oregon and USC would win any tiebreaker involving teams with two league losses. That’s because the Wildcats, who already have defeated Stanford and Oregon State, would have beaten every potential two-loss team.

By the way, those wins over Stanford and Oregon State are looking better all the time.

Here is the upshot: Arizona can LOSE at Cal this week and still control its own destiny.

And that means this: You better get your tickets for the Nov. 21 game against Oregon because it will be the most important home game at Arizona this late in the season. Ever.

There is a breakdown of the rest of the Pac-10 schedule at our partner wildaboutazcats.com.

Postgame notes and quotes from Arizona’s 48-7 victory over Washington State:

YOU CAN HAVE A GAME BALL FOR ONLY $10 MILLION
Jeff and Sharon Stevens of El Paso, who donated $10 million Thursday toward the construction of the north end zone project at Arizona Stadium, were special guests at Saturday’s game. Coach Mike Stoops presented the Stevens — who are both UA grads — with a game ball in the postgame locker room.

UA assistant Jeff Hammerschmidt, who coordinates the special teams, was also given a game ball after his unit returned a kick and a punt for touchdowns. Word is, there was some joking in the locker room that the game ball should have gone to linebackers coach Tim Kish, who oversaw the special teams walkthrough on Friday while Hammerschmidt was out recruiting.

COOL STAT
The Arizona first-string defense hasn’t allowed a touchdown in the past two games. UCLA scored its only touchdown on a fumble return, and Washington State scored midway through the fourth quarter when the Cats were using second- and third-stringers.

REED READY TO ROLL
Defensive end Brooks Reed, who had missed almost all of the Pac-10 season because of a sprained ankle, entered the game against Washington State on the Cougars’ third series. On WSU’s fourth series, Reed beat the right tackle around the edge and circled around to knock the ball loose from quarterback Jeff Tuel. Lolomana Mikaele recovered at the WSU 14, and UA scored three plays later to take a 31-0 lead early in the second quarter.

The coaches took Reed out of the game soon after that.

Said defensive coordinator Mark Stoops: “I saw a couple of people rolling up on him and cutting him, and said, ‘That’s enough.’”

Basically, the coaches wanted to test Reed to see if he was full speed for a daunting final month of the season. They came away convinced that he is, which is a big boost for the defense, which now has a better chance of getting a consistent pass rush without having to blitz.

“He really showed his snap,” said head coach Mike Stoops.

RUNNING BACK ROULETTE
Stoops said that backup running back Greg Nwoko, recovering from a shoulder sprain, could have played against Washington State but didn’t. “We didn’t feel like we had to risk it,” Stoops said. Better to rest Nwoko and get him ready for the final stretch. No word from Stoops on starter Nic Grigsby, who has been behind Nwoko’s timetable in rehabbing a shoulder injury. We’ll hear more from Stoops about Grigsby on Monday.

Without those two, Arizona used Keola Antolin, Nick Booth and true freshman H-back Taimi Tutogi at tailback. Booth led the way with 18 carries for 84 yards. The coaches could have given Antolin a larger workload but were cognizant of the need to keep him healthy, too.

COOL STAT, PART II
For the second time this season, Arizona’s Keenyn Crier did not attempt a punt.

FOLES FEELING FINE
When quarterback Nick Foles was last seen on a football field, he threw three interceptions and was involved in two fumbles against UCLA while suffering from what he described as an upper respiratory infection that wiped him out. He played a little more than half the game against Washington State, leaving in the middle of the second quarter but coming back in after halftime for much of the third quarter.

Foles completed 12 of 19 passes for 136 yards, with one touchdown and no interception. The touchdown was a thing of beauty, as he threw an arcing pass from the left hashmark toward the right corner of the end zone. The ball went over a defender to Terrell Turner, who had just enough room to make a nice catch in bounds.

“Nick Foles is really, really good,” said Washington State coach Paul Wulff. “He was so accurate and poised. He’s just a sophomore and he’s really, really good.”

GET THIS MAN A SCORE UPDATE
Stoops admitted he was eager to cut short his postgame interview so he could catch the end of the Oregon-Stanford game. Before the Cardinal hung on to upset the Ducks 51-42, Stoops was asked if he would be surprised by a Stanford victory. “No. I know what type of team Stanford has,” he said. “I have seen them up close and personal, and they present some unique challenges offensively. No one really understands until you play them. They can score a lot of points.”

QUOTE TO NOTE
“The thing I was most proud of is just the way our kids took the field. It wasn’t a jump-up-and-down, hit-your-head-on-the-goal-post kind of week. We were just focused on the details that win you football games.” — UA coach Mike Stoops, on his team’s steady, serious demeanor.

Arizona is a 31-point favorite this week against Washington State. How rare is that? Well, the last time UA was favored by that much, the year was … uh, 2008.

Grigsby

I did some research on this last season before UA played Washington on Oct. 8. The Wildcats ended up being 24-point favorites. At the time, that matched the biggest point spread in Arizona’s favor since at least 1990; finding anything beyond that was going to require time in the archives/library that I didn’t/don’t really have.

But when UA played at Washington State last season, on Nov. 8, the spread was 41 points.

Safe to say, that is the largest point spread for Arizona in the Pac-10 era. This week’s game likely is No. 2.

In any case, it’s pretty rare stuff that coach Mike Stoops is having none of.

Stoops said Washington State “is more than capable of coming in here and winning. Does anyone expect that? Probably not. But it happens every week.

“Anyone can beat anybody on any given day. That’s been proven. I feel foolish even talking about it. … I think our kids understand that. Hopefully, we’re smart enough to understand that.”

Stoops was asked, in so many words, at his regular Monday press conference if the quality of this week’s opponent would factor into a decision to rest running backs Nic Grigsby and Greg Nwoko.

That’s not a question that a coach is going to answer completely honestly — why, yes, Washington State is so lame that we’re going to use only our second-stringers — but it’s a reasonable point.

There really is no need to hurry Grigsby and Nwoko back onto the field against the Cougs. Those guys need the extra time off to heal shoulder sprains.

As it is, Stoops said both running backs are “very questionable,” for Saturday’s homecoming game, which begins at 1:30 p.m.

The time-off debate is different for defensive end Brooks Reed, whose ankle injury has kept him off the field for almost all of the past four games. His inactivity means it’s a good idea to get him re-acclimated to the speed of the game before a season-defining four-game stretch to end the season.

“Getting Brooks back this week will definitely improve our defensive position and our ability to rush off the edge,” Stoops said. “That is something that he consistently gives you every time he steps on the field.”

At running back against Washington State, Stoops can use heavy doses of Keola Antolin and Nick Booth. Or the Cats could throw abut 50 screen passes. Those are basically runs, anyway.

True freshman H-back Taimi Tutogi, who is a solidly built 250 pounds, played running back in high school and could be used in short yardage situations, Stoops said.

Preparing for a code red emergency, Arizona will have true freshman Daniel Jenkins ready to rip off his 2009 redshirt. But, if all goes well, he stays on the sideline with Grigsby and Nwoko.

Consider WSU’s defensive stats:

• 119th out of 120 teams in total defense (511.13 yards per game).
• 114th in rushing defense (220.38 yards per game).
• 114th in scoring defense (37.38 points per game).

So, the theme of the week for the Wildcats is not overlooking 1-7 Washington State, not getting heads that grow too big for their helmets with everyone congratulating them for being ranked for the first time in nine years.

Stoops joked that one of the benefits of being ranked — Arizona is No. 21 in the AP poll and No. 18 in the BCS standings — is seeing the team name scroll across the ESPN ticker during other college football games.

“I think you have to take pride in it to stay there,” Stoops said of the rankings.

“But we don’t want to be a one-shot wonder. We have played some awfully good football the last two years. You want to build a consistent Top 20, Top 25 program, and this is something you can take pride in.”

Arizona running backs Nic Grigsby and Greg Nwoko won’t practice this week while rehabbing shoulder sprains suffered last Saturday against UCLA, coach Mike Stoops said this afternoon. He didn’t make any prediction whether they would be available when UA resumes play after its bye week, at home against Washington State on Nov. 7.

“Nic and Greg will be week to week,” said Stoops, adding that he didn’t know which one would be back first. “”We’ll know more as they progress throughout the week. Keola is back healthy, and that was a big bonus for us, offensively.”

Keola Antolin, coming back from an ankle injury, played just the second half against UCLA, but rushed 16 times for 77 yards. He is strong enough to handle a significant workload, with a bit of a break from Nick Booth, if Grigsby and Nwoko can’t go against Washington State.

Stoops said the coaching staff will look at freshman running back Daniel Jenkins as an option, if UA gets any thinner at running back. Jenkins is one of two freshman running backs who are trying to redshirt. Wide receiver Bug Wright is another possibility.

Stoops said starting defensive end Brooks Reed, who has missed almost all of the Pac-10 season because of an ankle injury, will continue his rehab this week in an effort to be close to 100 percent for the Cougars game.

“We need to get Brooks back,” Stoops said. “He’s such a huge part of our defense. That is a huge part missing for us — his consistent pressure off the edge.”

UA-UCLA game blog

Arizona coach Mike Stoops said after Saturday’s 27-13 victory over UCLA that starting running back Nic Grigsby and third-string back Greg Nwoko each suffered sprains of the AC shoulder joint during the game.

For Grigsby, it’s an aggravation of an injury he has been playing with for a few weeks. He left the game in the first half. Nwoko left the game late in the third quarter and had his left arm in a sling as he left the field.

“How severe, to what degree, I will know more next week,” Stoops said.

Second-string back Keola Antolin, who didn’t practice late in the week and didn’t play in the first half as he was trying to rest an ankle injury, came in during the second half. He rushed 16 times for 77 yards and made what offensive coordinator Sonny Dykes called the play of the game.

Antolin gained 11 yards on a draw on third-and-10 from the UCLA 36 in the third quarter. Arizona scored on a 25-yard catch-and-run by Juron Criner one play later for a 20-6 lead.

“He still has been bothered by that ankle, but that’s the best he has looked in a while,” Stoops said. “It was good. we needed him. We needed to run the football.”

Fourth-stringer Nick Booth added a 6-yard touchdown run with 34 seconds left in the third quarter for the game’s final points.

Dykes joked that maybe some of UA’s receivers can help at running back; UA did have good luck running several fly sweeps to its wideouts (a combined nine carries for 95 yards). But running back depth could really be an issue for the next game — vs. Washington State on Nov. 7 — and beyond.

Who is behind Booth on the depth chart?

“Open tryouts for running backs,” Dykes joked.

You have to go down to Kylan Butler and Daniel Jenkins, both of whom are true freshmen who are redshirting.

“Hopefully, we won’t get to that point,” Dykes said. “We’ll probably get those guys some reps this week and see who we feel is a little bit further along, and go from there.”

Elsewhere, quarterback Nick Foles was suffering from the flu, which helps explain his mixed night. He threw three interceptions — two on deflected passes — and made a bad handoff exchange with Nwoko for a lost fumble on the first play of the second half. In general, he just wasn’t quite as sharp.

He threw a lateral that linebacker Akeem Ayers broke up and safety Tony Dye scooped up for a touchdown on a fumble return. Dykes said Foles had the option to call a run or a pass on that play, and should have called a run based on the defense.

“We kind of made a bad decision,” Dykes said. “The thing is, we’ve run a thousand of those this year and he’s made the (right) decision probably 98 percent of the time.”

Dykes said Foles seemed to wear down as the game went on, although Foles’ other numbers don’t look bad — 22 of 34 for 247 yards and two touchdowns.

“Probably didn’t play as well as he has been up to this point, but at some point, he was going to have to come back to earth,” Dykes said. “Tonight, he did. It was humbling. The good thing is he was tough enough to overcome it and make enough plays for us to have a chance to win. The defense, obviously, played fantastic.”

Speaking of that defense, it was without starting defensive end Brooks Reed again. Reed has missed almost all of the past four games because of an ankle injury. D’Aundre Reed, who has been playing with a broken hand, started the game in Brooks Reed’s spot, but aggravted the injury and came out in favor of Apai Tuihalamaka.

Stoops said the goal is to get Brooks Reed healthy during the bye week and especially have him ready to go for a rugged finish to the season — at Cal, vs. Oregon, at ASU, at USC.

“We’re trying to get Brooks back to full strength,” Stoops said. “The back end of our schedule, there is a lot there.”

The word of the day is “freak.”

As in Arizona coach Mike Stoops saying several times Monday, referring to that play in last Saturday’s painful loss at Washington, “it was just a freak thing” or some variation thereof.

But that wasn’t the only freaky thing going on.

On Friday morning, senior defensive tackle Earl Mitchell was standing in a hallway at McKale Center. Someone called his name. He glanced. He started to turn his head back around. A door opened from the baseball locker room.

Bam!

The edge of the door hit him above the eye.

“It was pretty much just a freak accident,” Mitchell said Monday.

Freakish enough that he needed a couple of stitches in his eyebrow, and coaches worried about a head injury, so Mitchell didn’t travel with the team to Seattle later that day. That put the Wildcats down two starting defensive linemen — Mitchell and end Brooks Reed, who missed his second consecutive game with an ankle injury.

“It’s crazy. Real unfortunate,” Mitchell said. “The thing is, it could have happened to anybody. To be honest, I’m glad it happened to me rather than somebody else walking down the hallway.”

Arizona started Lolomana Mikaele at defensive tackle, with D’Aundre Reed starting at end. Defensive coordinator Mark Stoops revealed Monday that Reed suffered a broken hand during the game, but was out there at the end of the game because the line was “bare bones.”

D’Aundre Reed’s availability for Saturday isn’t yet known.

Mitchell said he was confident about playing this week, but Mike Stoops called Mitchell and Reed “kind of day to day.”

“Getting those two guys healthy will be a big factor in this game,” Stoops said, referring to an expected physical battle against Stanford and bull-dozing running back Toby Gerhart.

On the other side of UA’s line, starting left guard Conan Amituanai suffered a knee injury against Washington. “Hopefully, it’s just an MCL sprain,” Stoops said. If it is, Amituanai figures to be out 2-3 weeks. He was scheduled for an MRI exam this afternoon.

“At least we have some depth,” Stoops said.

The starting line figures to look like this: LT Phillip Garcia, LG Mike Diaz (moving from left tackle), C Colin Baxter, RG Herman Hall, RT Adam Grant.

Right guard Vaughn Dotsy is back from a concussion, so he could go into the lineup, with Hall moving to the right side for more mix-and-match possibilities.

Stoops said running backs Nic Grigsby and Keola Antolin were still “banged up” for the Washington game, leaving the bulk of the work to Greg Nwoko. More will be known about the status of Grigsby and Antolin later in the week.

At receiver, Bug Wright, who has missed two full games because of a knee injury, “should be back, hopefully,” Stoops said. Wright was scheduled to participate in some of practice this afternoon.

“He looked pretty good running at the end of the week last week,” Stoops said.

It is customary for a college football head coach to talk up his weekly opponent. The gamesmanship is just part of the game.

Mike Stoops

But without a touch of insincerity, Arizona coach Mike Stoops raved and raved Monday about Washington junior Jake Locker, mentioning the quarterback in the same breath as Florida’s Tim Tebow (one of the greatest college quarterbacks ever) and John Elway (one of the greatest quarterbacks ever).

“I think people used to laugh at you when you compared him to Tebow a couple of years ago,” Stoops said at his weekly news conference.

“But watch him play. There is not a throw on the field he can’t make. Some of throws he made in the USC game to give them a chance to win were phenomenal. …

“One of his strongest attributes is his ability to scramble and keep plays alive and keep looking downfield to throw the ball. We’re talking that this kid might be the best quarterback in the country. He possesses arm strength and makes throws a lot of guys can’t make. He just flicks the ball and it just gets there very quickly.”

One of the reasons Stoops might be such a big fan is that Locker had — statistically — his career game against Arizona as a freshman in 2007 in Seattle. Locker passed for 336 yards and two touchdowns, and ran for 157 yards and two scores, but the Wildcats rallied to win 48-41 and probably saved Stoops’ job that day.

Locker was out with a thumb injury when Arizona routed Washington last season.

“I don’t want to get crazy, but the guy has got an Elway-type of release and arm strength that not many people have,” Stoops said. “His mobility … John was a lot like that when he was younger.”

Locker (6-3, 226) played in only four games last season because of the thumb injury, and he entered this season below 50 percent in career accuracy. Things are different this season under first-year head coach Steve Sarkisian, who tutored Heisman-winners Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart at USC.

With improved mechanics and working in a pro-style offense, Locker has completed 57.7 percent of his throws through five games.

“I read somewhere we he lost 10 pounds or so. You can tell,” Stoops said.

“He’s not as bulky as he was, and he’s much more fluid in what he is doing when you watch him play. … Accuracy is somewhere where he struggled, but his accuracy is much different. He’s working with a guy who has worked with a number of top quarterbacks throughout his career.”

If you don’t believe Stoops’ flattery, how about the praise from USC’s Pete Carroll? He said this about Locker — before the Huskies upset the Trojans in Seattle last month.

“That’s the best quarterback we’ve played in nine years here,” Carroll said. “He’s the most extraordinary athlete at the position we’ve seen, and I saw that as a freshman.”

That “extraordinary athlete” thing includes Texas QB Vince Young.

And what are Stoops’ final words on Locker?

“Hopefully, he will leave after this year,” he said.

INJURY NOTES
Stoops said that all his injured players have a chance to be back this week, with the exception of tight end Rob Gronkowski and receiver Bug Wright.

Gronkowski is out for the season after back surgery; Stoops said it would be 2 to 3 months before he could resume physical activity. Wright, who had arthroscopic knee surgery, could be back for the Oct. 17 home game against Stanford (which, by the way, will start at 4:30 p.m. and be telecast on Versus, it was announced Monday).

Running back Nic Grigsby would not have contact today in practice as he tries to come back from a shoulder injury, Stoops said. Other players trying to make it back are defensive end Brooks Reed (ankle), offensive guard Vaughn Dotsy (concussion), offensive tackle Mike Diaz (concussion), running back Keola Antolin (ankle) and receiver Delashaun Dean (thigh).