This is how the north end zone project looked at 1:07 p.m. Wednesday. Photo from UA webcam

The Arizona Wildcats will move their spring football game off campus because of construction in the north end zone of Arizona Stadium, athletic director Greg Byrne told TucsonCitizen.com on Wednesday.

“We’ll have it ready for next football season,” Byrne said, “but getting it ready for a game in the middle of the construction time would present a challenge for us.”

Nothing is official, but Byrne said Arizona is considering holding the game at Kino Stadium, the site of the Casino Del Sol All-Star Game last Monday.

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Arizona will replace the clock with its block "A" logo, with plaques honoring former coaches Jerry Kindall and Frank Sancet below that. Photo by Anthony Gimino, TucsonCitizen.com

Arizona Wildcats coach Andy Lopez, sunglasses on, surveyed his new baseball home Wednesday afternoon, looking out at the sprinklers watering the sun-drenched grass.

“This is a great setting for us,” he would say later. “This could be a really exciting time for our program.”

Yes, the grass really is greener at Hi Corbett Field.

Arizona officials — including athletic director Greg Byrne and director of event operations Matt Brown — gave the media a tour of venerable Hi Corbett on Wednesday, even as workers painted the clubhouse and otherwise readied the facility for Feb. 17 opener against North Dakota State.

There is still plenty of work to do, and the Wildcats might not be able to move in when the team is allowed to start individual drills on Jan. 12, but things are coming together as Byrne and Lopez hoped when Arizona reached a deal with the city to lease the park that held minor-league baseball and major-league spring training for decades.

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Derrick Williams salutes the student section after his game-saving block against Washington. Photo by Chris Morrison, US-PRESSWIRE

Coaches coming, going and staying. NCAA champions. Memorable games. Unforgettable players.

The year that was in Arizona Wildcats athletics was packed with storylines, good and bad, and we’ll be buzzing about some of it for decades to come.

The longest-standing sports bloggers at TucsonCitizen.com — myself included — voted for the biggest UA stories of the year, trying to sort out individual accomplishments from big games from off-field news … balancing big sports with those that don’t get as much coverage.

Here are the results. The top 12 Arizona Wildcats sports stories of the year:

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Greg Byrne (left) pulled in Rich Rodriguez for less than Washington State will pay new coach Mike Leach. Photo by Mark Evans, TucsonCitizen.com

The Arizona Board of Regents unanimously approved the five-year contract of Rich Rodriguez on Thursday, which it should have done without hesitation considering the Wildcats’ new football coach is a bargain.

No matter what you think about the fairness or wisdom of the explosion of salaries for college coaches at the football and men’s basketball levels, current market value is current market value.

The thing is, athletic director Greg Byrne was able to land a big fish at below-market value.

Rodriguez’s five-year base salary:

Year 1 — $1.45 million
Year 2 — $1.5 million
Year 3 — $1.6 million
Year 4 — $1.7 million
Year 5 — $1.8 million

Add in $300,000 per year from Nike and IMG (which broadcasts Arizona athletics), and Rodriguez will take in $9.55 million over the length of his contract, less than $2 million per year. View the contract here.

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Mike Bellotti after Oregon's victory over Oklahoma State in the 2008 Holiday Bowl. Photo by Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE

There has been increasing chatter about Mike Bellotti in regard to the Arizona Wildcats football coaching search, but the former Oregon coach denied he is a candidate.

“There is nothing to this,” Bellotti told Ken Goe of the Oregonian on Thursday. “That is the easiest thing I can say.” Read the rest of the story at OregonLive.com.

Bellotti, 60, was 116-55 in 14 seasons as Oregon’s head coach before stepping down in March 2009 to become athletic director. He left that job a year later to become a college football analyst for ESPN.

Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne has, as promised, kept a fairly tight lid on any gossip about the coaching search. Byrne’s first target has been believed to be Boise State’s Chris Petersen; the two had a close relationship when both were at Oregon in the 1990s (as was Bellotti).

Byrne fired Mike Stoops on Oct. 10 after the Wildcats were off to a 1-5 start.

AD Greg Byrne is facing the biggest decision of his time at Arizona. Photo by Chris Morrison-US PRESSWIRE

Ten things I believe about the Arizona Wildcats’ search to replace football coach Mike Stoops:

1. I believe ESPN analyst Mark May is right.

He was on KTAR 620-AM in Phoenix on Wednesday, saying, “Chris Petersen is at the top of the list. I can tell that you that for sure.”

Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne is going to go all out to get Petersen, the Boise State head coach. He should. Petersen is the biggest, best, most established, most “available” coach in the West.

Who wouldn’t want their athletic director to knock on that door and, if needed, try to kick down that door?

Yes, yes … Petersen has turned down Byrne before — at Mississippi State after the 2008 season. Petersen didn’t jump at the Stanford job after last season. If Petersen didn’t want to be in Boise, didn’t love his situation in Boise, he’d be somewhere else today.

But things change. Times change.

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Boise State's Chris Petersen ... Arizona fans can dream, can't they? Photo by Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE

Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne says he won’t talk about the search for a head football coach until he is ready to make an announcement. In the meantime, everyone else will be speculating.

“In today’s world of instant information, a lot of times there is information that is inaccurate that gets out there. Sometimes, it’s accurate,” Byrne said.

“I want you to know that unless you’re hearing from us, and you’re hearing from me, that will be the only accurate information you can count on.”

Byrne, at the news conference Monday night to announce the dismissal of coach Mike Stoops, didn’t describe his ideal candidate. He didn’t say the new guy had to have head coaching experience, or had to be from the West, or had to be offensive-minded, for example.

At this point, Arizona is a moderately attractive job, certainly better than when Stoops was hired after the 2003 season.

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Is this the Mike Stoops we'll remember? Photo by Jason O. Watson-US PRESSWIRE

The images of Arizona Wildcats coach Mike Stoops will forever be of him on the sideline, screaming, shaking, stomping, contorted, cursing, out of control.

There really won’t be a whole lot of love lost for Stoops, who was fired Monday midway through his eighth season at Arizona, finishing with a 41-50 record. The timing of the decision might have been shocking, but the decision wasn’t.

The program wasn’t in position to move forward with Stoops at the helm.

Athletic director Greg Byrne knew it. He acted. Why wait?

“I felt we need a fresh start,” he said.

The end was excruciating.

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What would Mike Stoops say about the refs on Twitter? Photo by Chris Morrison, US PRESSWIRE

For now, Arizona Wildcats fans will have to be content with the Fake Mike Stoops.

The real Mike Stoops has no intention of following his athletic director, Greg Byrne, into the world of Twitter. We’ll just have to do without Stoops dispensing 140 characters or less on the Wildcats, life, instant replay, wine or his newest pair of designer shoes.

“No. No Twitter for me,” he said with a laugh.

“Nah. I’m not one of those social media guys. I get texts and e-mails. That’s as far as I go.”

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Gilbert Arenas recently tweeted this photo of him face-planking a cake.

Sports Illustrated released its Twitter 100 list for the sports world, and two very different Arizona Wildcats made the list.

There is the unpredictable (is that a nice way to put it?) Gilbert Arenas, whose recent obsession with planking compelled our Christopher Wuensch to not only chronicle it but join in.

And then there’s Jennie Finch, who, on Twitter, just as in real life, is one of the sun-shiniest people on the planet.

Check out this Finch tweet from Thursday afternoon:

Sometimes all you need is a piece of watermelon Bubblicious gum & chew it like your 10 years old!

On the other hand, there was this from Arenas:

my twitter is for jokes and trash talkin if u dont like it go follow sumbody who cares about there image and wont say honest stuff

(University of Arizona alum Jeff Goodman, a national college basketball writer for CBSSports.com, is also on the Twitter 100 list … as he should be. He had news Thursday about Arizona sophomore guard Jordin Mayes undergoing surgery for a stress fracture in his foot.)

If only Jennie Finch could tweet to us why she was holding a soccer ball during the All-Star legends and celebrity softball game at Chase Field. Jerry Lai-US PRESSWIRE

As far as a UA-related Twitter list, who do you think should be on it?

It should start with athletic director Greg Byrne, who in the past several months has broken news on Twitter about football assistant coaches and basketball coach Sean Miller’s contract extension. And he gives away free stuff, too.

Derrick Williams is off to the Minnesota Timberwolves, but he is still entertaining and prolific on Twitter. There might not be a better place to follow his rookie season … whenever that will begin.

In addition to Arenas and Finch, there are all sorts of current and former players to follow, depending on which flavor you prefer. Same with following the local media.

If you’re new (or going to be new to Twitter), this list is one place to start for your Wildcat needs.

Let us know who you prefer.

You can follow the TucsonCitizen.com network on Twitter to get a feed of all our stories. But we have plenty of other things to say on our personal accounts — here’s Javier Morales, Christopher Wuensch, Steve Rivera, Brad Allis, Scott Terrell, the 110SportsPodcast (Matt Minkus and Victor Rodriguez) … and mine.