Bug Wright catches the game-winning TD pass aganist Iowa.
Photo by Chris Morrison, US PRESSWIRE

The Arizona football team is deepest at receiver, even with senior Bug Wright no longer with the Wildcats.

“Just a violation of team policies and rules,” coach Mike Stoops said Wednesday morning. “It’s been a chronic problem that hasn’t rectified itself.”

Stoops said he didn’t know what Wright would do next. Wright, who has used his redshirt season, would have to transfer to a lower-division school to continue playing because he wouldn’t have to sit out a year.

(more…)

Motivation isn’t hard to come by for the Arizona Wildcats.

“We lost four straight,” said senior running back Nic Grigsby, “and we don’t want to end on a fifth one.”

Doesn’t get much simpler than that for tonight’s Alamo Bowl matchup against Oklahoma State.

The Wildcats have been claiming that their preparation has been much better than last season. Arizona was past its expiration date when it showed up for the 2009 Holiday Bowl against Nebraska, having spent more than a week in San Diego over the Christmas Holiday.

This time around, coach Mike Stoops worked the team hard in Tucson before giving them a few days off before Christmas.

“The focus has been tremendous with our players,” defensive coordinator Tim Kish said at an Alamo Bowl press conference this week. “The energy level has been up, the enthusiasm has been up.”

A better prepared team doesn’t necessarily mean a winning team, but at least the Wildcats might have a fighting chance against the 10-2 Cowboys — unlike last year in a 33-0 bowl loss to Nebraska.

(more…)

FoxSportsArizona.com has compiled what it thinks is the top 10 plays of the Arizona Wildcats football season (also known as the Juron Criner highlight reel).

You can watch the top 10 plays and vote for your favorite here.

My pick isn’t on the list. In terms of what it meant, combined with a high degree of difficulty — considering Nick Foles had to rifle a third-down pass through a small window between defenders — I’ll take the game-winning touchdown pass to Bug Wright to beat Iowa as my Arizona play of the year.

You can see that one as part of the highlight package below.

Was this game-winning TD pass from Nick Foles to Bug Wright against Iowa the Wildcats' Play of the Year so far?/Photo by Chris Morrison, US PRESSWIRE

The Arizona Wildcats have reached the halfway point of their season at 5-1 overall, ranked 15th in the AP poll.

But it’s an uneasy time. Starting quarterback Nick Foles is out indefinitely with a knee injury, and while Mike Stoops said Foles will return this season, no one knows for sure exactly when that will be.

While the first half of the season was challenging — including Iowa — the second half of the schedule is ever more so, with Stanford, USC, Oregon and Arizona State in the final month.

And there’s this little nugget from history: The last time Arizona was 5-1 was the 2000 season … and then the schedule turned tougher, the Wildcats lost some painfully close games, and they ended up losing their final five games, costing coach Dick Tomey his job.

That’s just a reminder that, as is usually the case at this point of the year, anything could happen. The Wildcats’ season could range anywhere from historical splendor to heart-stabbing disappointment.

Let’s take a look at the first half of the season:

Please continue reading my story at FoxSportsArizona.com

Nick Foles was the first QB to pass for more than 300 yards against Iowa since the end of the 2007 season/Photo by Chris Morrison, US-PRESSWIRE

It’s one of those classic “movie” moments. Game on the line. Quarterback gets into the huddle and says the most perfectly inspirational line. Something about heart and determination and respect and all that.

So what did Arizona Wildcats quarterback Nick Foles say to his teammates in the huddle late in Saturday night’s game against the ninth-ranked Iowa Hawkeyes?

“I love ya’ll,” he said. “Let’s go do this.”

Foles doesn’t need someone else to write his lines.

That was perfect.

Speaking of love, just how much are you loving Nick Foles right now?

Foles didn’t crack under the pressure Saturday night, even after the Wildcats were trying to put a pretty bow on their gift-wrapped present to the Hawkeyes. Penalties. Turnovers. More penalties. More turnovers.

Arizona, which had been up 27-7 at halftime, was tied at 27. Momentum gone. Cue the panic in Arizona Stadium.

Not from Foles, keeping his offense loose on the sideline.

(more…)

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).