Arizona’s 2008 football recruiting class was ranked 39th nationally by Rivals.com and Scout.com. Eh. The Wildcats would like to live in a better neighborhood, but you know what coaches always say — you need three or four years to truly evaluate a class.

Phillip Garcia was part of a 2008 junior college recruiting class that is providing five key players for the Wildcats/Tucson Citizen photo

In UA’s case, let’s chop that time frame down to about 18 months.

Arizona is 4-2 at the halfway point of the 2009 season, and, barring an upset, will go to 6-2 overall and 4-1 in the Pac-10, which would make the Wildcats a legit contender for the conference title (and the program’s first Rose Bowl … but you knew that).

The Cats get UCLA on Saturday and then, after a bye, Washington State. Both games are at home. Those two opponents are a combined 0-7 in the Pac-10.

One of the reasons the Wildcats are doing so well is that 2008 recruiting class. The UA signed 23 players in that class, and then added another guy late in spring. You might have heard of him. Quarterback Nick Foles, a transfer from Michigan State.

The Wildcats would be in a bad way (or at least a not-as-good way) if the coaches hadn’t successfully plugged holes with junior college transfers. After all, that’s why you recruit those guys in the first place.

It’s often hit and miss with junior college recruits, but Arizona “hit” with offensive linemen Mike Diaz, Phillip Garcia and Herman Hall, and linebackers Vuna Tuihalamaka and Sterling Lewis. Not only are they starting-level players (a combined 21 starts this season), they successfully bridged the recruiting gap so UA could develop younger recruits who will be ready to take over next season.

The only JC transfer miss was offensive lineman J’Marcus Webb. He was the highest-rated of the bunch but was the only member of the entire class to not qualify. He is now at lower-division West Texas. Anyway, it’s a blessing to hit so well on five of six junior college recruits.

Among the high school kids in that class, Arizona is already getting key production from running backs Keola Antolin and Greg Nwoko. At receiver, David Douglas (25 catches for 267 yards and two touchdowns) and Juron Criner (23 catches for 301 yards and three touchdowns) are key members of the rotation.

Robert Golden is the starting strong safety. Vaughn Dotsy was starting at right guard before suffering a concussion and is back at least as a key member of the playing rotation.

It’s hard to know what to make of the future of quarterback Matt Scott, who was supplanted as the starter after three games by Foles, who shows no intention of giving it back. Foles, because of his late transfer, wasn’t factored into the UA’s class ranking in 2008 … which shows one of the inherent flaws of banking opinions on recruiting rankings.

Other members of the class, such as OL Trace Biskin, LB R.J. Young and DT Jowyn Ward, seem ready to emerge next season.

There’s another trend at work here.

Call it the Rise of the Two-Star Recruits.

(That’s another reason to not get all aflutter over football recruiting rankings.)

USC gets all five- and four-star recruits, and good for them. You’d rather take your chances with those kind of guys than a team filled with two-star prospects. Arizona’s recruits tend to be of the three-star variety, with a few bigger stars mixed in.

But take a look at the players signed by UA coach Mike Stoops who were rated only two stars by either Rivals.com or Scout.com, or both:

2004
DL Yaniv Barnett
OL Joe Longacre
DB Dominic Patrick
CB Antoine Cason

2005
LB Spencer Larsen (coming back from a church mission)

2006
DT Lolomana Mikaele

2007
CB Trevin Wade
WR Bug Wright

2008
RB Greg Nwoko
WR Juron Criner
WR David Douglas
OL Herman Hall

That’s a major-award winner and a first-round draft pick (Cason), a first-team all-conference linebacker and valuable 2008 NFL rookie (Spencer Larsen), a 40-game starter on the offensive line (Longacre) … and several players from 2006 to 2008 who look to be significant contributors for a few more years.

When I was recently doing a story on Wade, I asked defensive coordinator Mark Stoops about finding those kind of gems.

“Certainly, some kids get so much hype and so much recruitment that it’s undeserved,” Stoops said. “And other kids, you find that they’re just good ball players.

“We don’t have the bells and whistles around here to go get a bunch of four- and five-star recruits. It’s just not going to happen. So we have to do a great job of evaluation and do a great job of developing.

“We’re always going to go after them (the four- and five-star recruits) — and not just because they are four- and five-star guys. We’re going to recruit the best players we can get. But there are a lot of good programs out there, and we have our obstacles that we must overcome.”

Getting back to the original point … it seems as if Arizona overcame everything just fine in its modestly ranked but high-performing 2008 recruiting class.

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).

Arizona won a Pac-10 road game when it didn’t have tight end Rob Gronkowski, defensive end Brooks Reed, offensive tackle Mike Diaz, offensive guard Vaughn Dotsy and receiver Bug Wright, all out because of injury.

Arizona won a Pac-10 road game when it lost running back Nic Grigsby to a shoulder injury on the first series of the game.

Arizona won a Pac-10 road game when it lost backup running back Keola Antolin in the first half to a leg injury.

Arizona won a Pac-10 road game when it was using a first-time starting quarterback, had two critical replay reviews go in favor of the other team … and Arizona won when it absolutely had to have some Wildcat make a play on defense at the end of the game.

That Wildcat was cornerback Devin Ross, who came up with an interception with 1:33 left when Arizona was protecting a three-point lead.

The 37-32 win at Oregon State — when sophomore Nick Foles emerged as the quarterback of the future — was at once a huge sigh of relief and a positive sign for the rest of the season.

The Wildcats won because they have the kind of overall depth they didn’t come close to having when Mike Stoops took over for the 2004 season after Hurricane Mackovic ripped through the program.

“I think that’s the greatest compliment I can give our coaches and our players,” Stoops said in his postgame radio interview. “We develop players.”

There is lot left in the season, and most of the Pac-10 schedule will produce games just like this one — physical, dramatic, up for grabs. The Wildcats’ season could go any which way.

But if you’re looking for optimism, here are a few somethings to consider.

Since near the end of the 2007 season, Arizona:

• Has won 14 of 21 games.
• Is 9-5 in Pac-10 games.
• Has a 3-2 record against ranked teams.
• Defeated the No. 2 team in the country (Oregon, 2007).
• Won the 2008 Las Vegas Bowl, 31-21 over BYU.
• Has been competitive against everybody, not losing a game by more than 10 points.

The thing that has kept Stoops from more success in his five-plus seasons has been his record in close games. Before the Oregon State game, Stoops was 6-16 in games decided by eight points or less.

He’s now 7-16 in those situations.

“It was an unbelievable team win,” Stoops said.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but to have the kids compete for the full 60 minutes was very gratifying. We had guys step up … all over the place.”

None more so than Foles, who completed 25 of 34 passes for 254 yards, with three touchdowns and no interceptions. He also rushed for a touchdown. Most of all, he showed poise in the pocket, able to feel pressure, scramble for time … and still make the play.

“Arizona was about as efficient as I’ve ever seen them,” said Oregon State coach Mike Riley. “They were sharp.”

Foles made his first career start look as low-stress as a day at the beach.

“A pretty cool guy,” Stoops said. “He is not too up. He never got too down when he didn’t start. He’s a competitor. … We needed his composure tonight.”

Given the circumstances and adversity, it was one of the biggest wins of Stoops’ tenure. But we seem to be saying that a lot lately.

After last season’s win over Arizona State to get bowl eligible.

After the win over BYU.

And now the win at Oregon State to start Pac-10 play.

In all, Arizona has been a very good program for about two full seasons now.

Has Stoops gotten enough credit for that?