Oregon's LaMichael James ran through the Arizona defense for 288 yards. Photo by Chris Morrison-US PRESSWIRE

On a night in which Arizona honored former defensive tackle Rob Waldrop — the cornerstone of the early Desert Swarm defenses — the Wildcats gave up more rushing yards in one game than they did in Waldrop’s senior season.

In 1993, Arizona allowed 346 rushing yards in 12 games, including the Fiesta Bowl shutout of Miami.

Against Oregon on Saturday night, the Cats yielded a staggering 415 rushing yards, including LaMichael James’ school record 288 yards on 23 carries.

“Defensively, we’re just not playing anywhere close to good enough to win against a good football team,” coach Mike Stoops said after the 56-31 loss to Oregon at Arizona Stadium.

“We can’t commit any more guys to the line of scrimmage to stop the run. I don’t know what else to say. Structurally, we have to look at some things. But I thought LaMichael James was spectacular. We just couldn’t get off blocks to make plays. …

“It starts with defense, and we’re not playing good enough.”

He doesn’t have to say that twice.

(more…)

It’s over. Oregon wins 56-31, dealing Arizona its eighth consecutive loss to FBS teams. I’ll be back later with postgame reaction and stories.

* * *

RB LaMichael James set the school single-game record with 288 rushing yards against Arizona with a 6-yard run with about 3 minutes left. The former record was 285, set by Onterrio Smith in 2001 against Washington State.

The Ducks score again to lead 56-31 with 1:45 to go.

James also had 15 yards in receptions and 60 yards on two punt returns.

* * *

Arizona comes back with a 75-yard touchdown drive, capped by a 4-yard pass to David Roberts. QB Nick Foles has set a personal record with 56 pass attempts; the school record is 62, held by Willie Tuitama.

* * *

Oregon finishes off a drive with another touchdown, this one from RB Kenjon Barner, to make it 49-24 with about 10 minutes left … and the clock can’t run fast enough now.

* * *

Oregon RB LaMichael James, with a 22-yard run with about 11:30 to play, set a personal record with 260 rushing yards. His former career high was 257 yards, set against Stanford last season.

He is the first player to rush for 200 yards against Arizona since Washington’s James Sims in 2005.

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Arizona's defense has given up nine TDs in the past two weeks, including this run by Stanford's Anthony Wilkerson. Photo by Matt Kartozian-US PRESSWIRE

Playing three consecutive games against top 10 teams is bad. Each has a national top 10 offense. That’s worse.

The worst part? Each of the three offenses is way different than the others.

The degree of difficulty continues to be off the charts for the Arizona Wildcats, who take on 10th-ranked Oregon tonight, trying to slow down the Ducks’ read-option attack, led by quarterback Darron Thomas, running back LaMichael James and a pack of thoroughbred tailbacks in reserve.

Oregon’s run-based spread attack comes one week after Arizona faced Stanford’s pro-style power attack in which the Cardinal crowded the line of scrimmage with an extra lineman and two tight ends to create a tight eight-man front.

That comes one week after Arizona was spread out by Oklahoma State, which can pass the ball with the best of anybody with quarterback Brandon Weeden and receiver Justin Blackmon.

“We’re going through a lot of different offenses right now,” said senior linebacker Derek Earls. “It’s kind of hard to get everything you need to do figured out. You get done with one game, then you have to go to a totally different look.

“Sometimes it gets frustrating, but it’s college football.”

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NOTE: This is an Oregon story from Gary Horowitz of the Salem (Ore.) Statesman Journal, one of our Gannett partners. Here is a link for more coverage of the Ducks from the newspaper.

Oregon's LaMichael James headlines an explosive Oregon offense. Photo by Jim Z. Rider-US PRESSWIRE.

EUGENE — As impressive as Oregon looked the past two weeks against Nevada and Missouri State, those lopsided wins come with a caveat.

The competition wasn’t stellar and the 10th-ranked Ducks were playing at Autzen Stadium, where they have won 18 games in a row.

Saturday’s game at Arizona should shed more light on the defending two-time conference champions.

“We’re a good team at home,” coach Chip Kelly said. “What we’ve gotta learn now is how do we play on the road? We lost our road opener.”

Technically, the season-opening loss against LSU in a matchup of top-five teams was a neutral-site game in Arlington, Texas, but the majority of fans at Cowboys Stadium where wearing the Tigers’ purple and gold.

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NOTE: These are Oregon notes from Gary Horowitz of the Salem (Ore.) Statesman Journal, one of our Gannett partners. Here is a link for more coverage of the Ducks from the newspaper.

Oregon's Tra Carson runs against Missouri State last week. Photo by Jim Z. Rider-US PRESSWIRE

EUGENE — Oregon has a full complement of speed running backs with LaMichael James, Kenjon Barner and De’Anthony Thomas.

Tra Carson is the Ducks’ emerging power back.

“I’m more of a banger, I guess you could say,” said Carson, a 6-foot, 227-pounder, who broke James’ single-season school rushing records as a senior at Liberty-Eylau High School in Texarkana, Texas.

Carson, who ran for 82 yards on nine carries in last week’s 56-7 rout of Missouri State, is the Ducks’ third-leading rusher this season with 116 yards (6.4 yards per carry).

No. 10 Oregon doesn’t alter its spread-option offense when Carson enters the game, but his running style is different than James, Barner and Thomas, who weigh less than 200 pounds. Think LeGarrette Blount.

(more…)

NOTE: This is a column from Gary Horowitz of the Salem (Ore.) Statesman Journal, one of our Gannett partners. Here is a link for more coverage of the Ducks from the newspaper.

EUGENE — It’s measuring stick time for Oregon. The 10th-ranked Ducks will be at Arizona on Saturday night in a nationally televised game (ESPN2). No. 5 Stanford faced the same scenario last Saturday and came away with a 37-10 victory behind Heisman Trophy candidate Andrew Luck’s 325 yards passing and two touchdowns.

We should know a lot more about Oregon after this game. It will be the Ducks’ first road test, although a neutral-site matchup against LSU in the season opener in Arlington, Texas, essentially was a home game for the Tigers.

“Winning on the road is a difficult challenge, especially in this conference,” coach Chip Kelly said. “Winning on the road’s the big thing.”

(more…)

NOTE: This is a story from Gary Horowitz in today’s edition of the Salem (Ore.) Statesman Journal, one of our Gannett partners. Click on the link to see a video of Oregon quarterback Darron Thomas talking after Monday’s practice.

EUGENE — In terms of hostile environments, playing at Arizona ranks near the top for No. 10 Oregon.

The Ducks rallied for a 44-41 double overtime victory in their last trip to Arizona Stadium in 2009, and offensive guard Carson York vividly remembers the Wildcats’ fans.

“They’re crazy down there,” York said after Monday’s practice. “Any place that tried to throw batteries and Jack Daniels bottles at you when you’re coming out of the locker room, it’s kind of an intimidating place to play sometimes.”

Oregon has won the past three games in the series, but a 34-24 loss in Tucson in 2007 proved costly. The Ducks were ranked No. 2 at the time, and quarterback Dennis Dixon was lost early in the first quarter when he aggravated a knee injury and missed the rest of the season.

(more…)

The Pac-10 games are wrapped up for the decade and not even a late surge could save Arizona from the bottom of the 10-year standings. Thanks, John Mackovic.

Arizona’s 4-20 conference record under Mackovic from 2001-03 was the second-worst three-year mark for any team in the Pac-10. Only Washington State in the past three years (4-23 playing a nine-game league schedule) was worse.

What Mackovic razed, Mike Stoops has raised. Perhaps the 2010s will be better for Arizona.

The chart below is the breakdown of how the Pac-10 fared this decade, with only this season’s bowl games to be played.

Pac-10 All-Decade standings

DECADE NOTES
Best travel pair: Not even USC could lift Los Angeles to this title. The Oregon-Oregon State pairing was the decade’s best with a combined 108 conference victories. The Los Angeles schools were next with 105.

Wither the Washingtons? The Washington schools had a combined 42 league victories in the first four years of the decade, then had a measly 22 in the next six seasons. That’s 1.8 conference wins per team for six long seasons. The last winning league record for a Washington school was WSU’s 6-2 mark in 2003.

Tough to stay on top: Only two of the seven teams that had winning conference records in the 1990s followed up with winning Pac-10 marks this decade — USC and Oregon.

TEAM NOTES
Arizona: The Wildcats are 14-8 in conference games dating to late in the 2007 season. Before that, Arizona was a miserable 16-48 in league games this decade.

Arizona State: Finished with a winning conference record just three times, and went only 2-18 in conference games in the state of California.

Cal: Conference record looks like better when starting with the Jeff Tedford era in 2002: 41-27.

Oregon: The Ducks were superb in the first two years of the decade and in the final two years, posting a 29-5 conference record in those four seasons. In the middle, Oregon was fairly average.

Oregon State: It seems almost impossible to believe that this is the same program that went 13-65-1 during the 1990s. From one decade to the next, the Beavers went from having a 17.1 winning percentage to a 60.7 winning percentage.

Stanford: In a six-season span (2002-2007), the Cardinal won only 13 conference games.

UCLA: The Bruins have lost at least four conference games in every season except 2005, when they were 6-2. UCLA can still add to its bowl total as it will be invited to the EagleBank Bowl if Navy beats Army on Saturday, thereby eliminating the Black Knights from bowl eligibility.

USC: The Trojan Decade ended with a thud, but the streak of seven consecutive league titles and seven consecutive seasons with double-digit victories was utter dominance. Those 15 first-round picks are more than twice any other Pac-10 team.

Washington: The far-and-away Pac-10 King of the 1990s (58-21-1) would have tied for last this decade if it hadn’t defeated Cal on the last weekend of the regular season.

Washington State: From 2001 to 2003, no team had more than the Cougars’ 19 conference victories (USC did, too). Those memories will have to keep Wazzu warm; in the seven other seasons, WSU managed a mere 14 league wins.

If you see any corrections, send them to me at anthonygimino (at) gmail.com.

Vote for the top UA football stories of the decade at our sports network partner wildaboutazcats.com

Do you love this Arizona football team or hate it?

“We were one play short,” coach Mike Stoops said late Friday night, quietly, in a interview room beneath the stands at Arizona Stadium. “It seems to be our story for the season.”

Sadly, he’s right.

Nobody makes a movie out of being close. Nobody produces special edition magazines — Rose Bowl at last! — when you fail to make a play at the end.

The ESPN coverage will fade away. GameDay, it was nice knowing you. Thanks for coming.

It has been the season of “What if,” a season of an interception off a shoe, an illegal double-pass and a 44-41 overtime loss to 11th-ranked Oregon when one play — one play somewhere in the fourth quarter on offense or defense or special teams — could have preserved a 24-14 lead with 13:57 left.

For about 29 minutes of game time, the UA defense stymied Oregon — the trickiest, sassiest, most doggone confounding offense in the Pac-10 — and kept the Ducks off the scoreboard. Arizona turned a 14-0 deficit into a 24-14 lead early in the fourth quarter.

But then it all slipped away.

Do you love the Wildcats for battling to the end and nearly upsetting the 11th-ranked team in the country?

Or do you hate them for blowing it?

For dangling Rose Bowl dreams right where you could touch them.

For being so dang close Saturday night that fans — idiotic, misguided fans — poured out of the stands and crowded the sidelines within the final minute of regulation, only to see the Ducks tie the game with a touchdown with six seconds left.

“Our guys couldn’t have fought any harder,” said defensive coordinator Mark Stoops.

“We were a play away from beating a very good football team. As bad as I feel, and as bad as our defense feels, you have to look at the character of our players and how far we’ve come. You have to take salvation in the big picture, because otherwise it will kill us right now.”

The big picture is that this was a team picked to finish eighth by the Pac-10 media, with other predictions being anywhere from fifth to eighth. Arizona, without its best player (tight end Rob Gronkowski) all season and without its top two running backs (Nic Grigsby and Keola Antolin) for the majority of the Pac-10 season, can still finish as high as a tie for second, with a possible berth to the Holiday Bowl.

That’s good.

But are you ready for this? If Arizona loses at Arizona State and USC, the Cats are stuck at 6-6 and could end up nowhere. The Pac-10 already has five qualified teams for its six bowl slots … and then UCLA and Arizona each are sitting on six victories.

How we all end up feeling about this team is still to be decided.

Arizona can’t let the loss to Oregon define the season, even though the game might do just it.

“I can say we’re not going to let it, but at the end of the day, we all know it is,” said senior free safety Cam Nelson. “It is something that is going to affect us for the rest of our lives, knowing we let this opportunity slip out of our hands. I could sit here and say, ‘No, we’re not going to worry about it and put it behind us,’ but I’m not (going to say that).”

As I’ve said before, Arizona is an average to above average team. That it flirted with school history is to its credit. The Pac-10 is filled with teams just like UA. Make a play, and win. Don’t make a play, and lose. Can’t win ‘em all.

Arizona has played five coin-flip games — Oregon State, Washington, Stanford, Cal and Oregon — and won twice.

Maybe the next time, the opponent’s 43-yard field goal will hit the crossbar and bounce backward and not forward. Maybe the next time, Arizona will fumble into the end zone and recover it. Maybe next time, an opponent’s pass into the end zone will be an inch the other way and get knocked down.

Credit to Oregon. Quarterback Jeremiah Masoli was superb when he absolutely had to be, running and passing, and leading the Ducks back to victory.

And the Cats are left with a bag full of “What ifs.”

Do you hate them for the pain of the close losses? For reminding us of other so-close seasons such as 1998 and 1993?

Or do you love them for coming so close in the first place?

When it was all over Saturday night and Oregon was celebrating, senior defensive tackle Earl Mitchell took a knee, alone, in the end zone. He rose, hands on hips, likely exhausted, taking it all in. As he took the slow walk to the locker room, the student section began chanting, “Ar-i-zon-a, Ar-i-zon-a.”

But the scoreboard read, Oregon 44, Arizona 41.

“You move forward and turn the page, as painful as it is,” Mike Stoops said.

The pain will only be magnified if Arizona doesn’t beat ASU.