Arizona celebrates at Sun Devil Stadium after beating ASU 31-27. Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

The Cup? Where’s the Cup?

The Arizona Wildcats were in their locker room, being so loud that nobody could hear themselves think. Not that they wanted to. They wanted to feel, to soak up a 31-27 come-from-behind victory against rival Arizona State that, at least partially, erased the frustration of a disappointing season.

The Wildcats, with their voices reverberating in the locker room and into the hallway, roared a version of “Bear Down.”

Twice.

“We’ve never done that before,” said receiver Juron Criner.

But where was the Territorial Cup? Arizona State officials couldn’t find it.

The Wildcats had already celebrated on the field, running all over Sun Devil Stadium, after cornerback Shaquille Richardson broke up a pass to receiver Mike Willie in the end zone on the final play of the game.

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Nick Foles was intercepted three times at Colorado, including one in the final minute. Photo by Ron Chenoy-US PRESSWIRE

Beat ASU.

That’s it. That’s all that’s left to do for the Arizona Wildcats.

They couldn’t beat Oklahoma State, Oregon, Stanford or USC. That’s understandable.

They couldn’t win at Oregon State. That was the final straw that got coach Mike Stoops fired.

They couldn’t win at Washington or beat Utah at home — two decent, but beatable teams — when there was still a postseason to play for. Oh well.

And then they flat-out embarrassed themselves at Colorado on Saturday, losing 48-29 to a team that hadn’t won a Pac-12 game. To a team that was averaging 18 points a game. To a team that had given up at least 500 yards in five consecutive games.

In reaching a new low, the Wildcats did their most unforgivable thing of the season.

“We have a lot of guys that play really, really hard, but I’m not sure we have a whole team that is doing that,” said interim head coach Tim Kish.

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How different would the fourth quarter have been had Nick Foles connected on this third-down pass to Juron Criner in the end zone? Photo by Steven Bisig-US PRESSWIRE

Let’s start at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Score tied. Arizona poised to take the lead against Washington.

Feeling pretty good right about then, huh?

The Wildcats’ frustrating season, which had been given a double-shot of gusto after the firing of coach Mike Stoops, still had a chance to turn around at that point. A win at Washington would be two in a row under interim coach Tim Kish and fire up talk of sneaking into the postseason at 6-6.

Instead, Arizona took a 42-31 loss at Husky Stadium.

Back to the beginning of the fourth quarter; it was second-and-goal from the Huskies’ 5-yard line.

Freshman Ka’Deem Carey lost 1 yard on a run. Nick Foles missed Juron Criner in the end zone on third down.

It was a missed opportunity, Arizona settled for a 24-yard field goal from John Bonano — at least he’s taken most of the nail-biting out of place-kicks in the past two weeks — and the Cats had a 31-28 lead.

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Winning coaches like Tim Kish sometime get to talk to ESPN's Jenn Brown after games. Photo by Chris Morrison-US PRESSWIRE

Tim Kish says it’s not about Tim Kish.

But the rest of this Arizona Wildcats football season is a lot about Tim Kish, even as he tries to share the credit with players, assistants and the guy he replaced at midseason amid difficult circumstances — the fired Mike Stoops.

Kish wasn’t even a minute into his remarks at a news conference following a football-is-fun-again 48-12 victory over UCLA on Thursday night before he gave a tip of the hat to Stoops.

“This is certainly a tribute to the foundation he built here,” Kish said. “I know our kids had him in mind as they came out here tonight.”

Maybe so, and rightly so, but it was Kish who stood on that foundation and crammed an offseason’s worth of scheme changes and confidence-building and culture-changing into 10 days before the UCLA game.

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Freshman running back Ka'Deem Carey and Arizona hope to do much more celebrating tonight vs. UCLA. Photo by Kelvin Kuo-US PRESSWIRE

The Arizona Wildcats had become a reflection of their head coach. All wound up. Tense. Twitchy. Tight.

Mike Stoops’ sideline behavior provided an interesting debate for more than seven seasons — passionate or emotionally wasteful? — and it appeared that, at least lately, the critics had it right. Stoops’ explosions had become counter-productive.

Instead of inspiring, Stoops more created an element of fear.

“I think we played to not make a mistake sometimes, and that’s not really the right way to play the game,” said interim head coach Tim Kish.

“Hopefully, we have made a few corrections that way and allowed ourselves to be freed up mentally, as well as physically and emotionally. I anticipate that being a good thing for us moving forward.”

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Tim Kish will make his debut as interim head coach Thursday night. Photo by Michael Chow/The Arizona Republic

Arizona interim football head coach Tim Kish held his first weekly news conference with the local media Monday, and here are some highlights:

There was one comment from Kish that seemed to sum up his first week on the job, as he has tried to instill a lighter atmosphere around the program and attempted to inject some fun into practices.

He said the best piece of advice came from former Arizona swimming coach Frank Busch, a national-championship winning coach who is now the national director of USA Swimming.

“Frank Busch put it best,” Kish said.

“The players don’t really care how much I know, or how much the staff knows, they want to know how much we care,” Kish said. “That has really been our theme going forward. That has been great advice, and I have taken it to heart.”

Kish said that fired coach Mike Stoops addressed the team Friday.

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Tim Kish will be face of Arizona football through the regular season. Photo by Michael Chow/The Arizona Republic

Tim Kish was recruiting in Los Angeles when he got the news Monday — Arizona Wildcats head coach Mike Stoops was fired and, oh yeah, this is your team for the next several weeks.

Kish, the team’s defensive coordinator turned interim head coach for the second half of the season, took a couple of flights back to Tucson, arriving around midnight, barely slept and made his debut on the Pac-12 coaches teleconference at 10:20 a.m. Tuesday.

“First and foremost, we’re just going to kind of regroup,” Kish said, adding that he hadn’t yet met with the other assistants or the players.

“Certainly, it was a sad day for our program yesterday, but today we have to move forward.”

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Duane Akina, right, celebrates a win at Nebraska last season with Texas head coach Mack Brown.
Photo by Bruce Thorson-US PRESSWIRE

Duane Akina is the middle of explaining his difficult decision to leave the University of Texas when he starts flashing back to all things Arizona.

Chuck Cecil pouncing on ASU punter Mike Schuh’s dropped snap in 1987 … Darryll Lewis turning Oregon quarterback Bill Musgrave sideways at the goal line in 1990 … the Desert Swarm days … coaching All-American cornerback Chris McAlister …

Akina is a Wildcat again, lured from Texas, where he had spent 10 seasons as an assistant, to return to Arizona, where he had spent the previous 14 seasons under Dick Tomey.

Now, Akina will coach the secondary for Mike Stoops.

“It was extremely hard,” Akina said by phone Monday night after packing up his locker at Texas.

“It was the exactly the same thing emotionally, with all the anxiety, that we went through the first time when I was leaving Tucson to come to Austin. It was like, ‘Oh no, not this again.’ Stomach churning. Couldn’t sleep.”

In the end, Akina said he felt the timing was right. He had felt a pull to head back west. His family was “fired up” to return to Tucson. He talked about his “unfinished business” as a Wildcat.

“We had a great stand when we were there in the 1990s,” Akina said.

“We were close. And that’s still the goal: I want to line up and be part of the first Arizona team in the Rose Bowl. We need to go there and get that.”

With Akina’s experience, success and Wildcat ties — plus, he inherits a terrific group of young defensive backs — there will be no shortage of topics in the coming weeks and months. For now, here are eight things about Akina’s hiring to hold you over:

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Kish

There was no news release or grand declaration. Arizona coach Mike Stoops just spilled out the news amid a few minutes of questions and answers with the media after Friday’s practice.

With co-defensive coordinator Greg Brown moving on to Colorado, the other co-defensive coordinator, Tim Kish, has had a change in status.

“Tim will be the defensive coordinator,” Stoops said, talking about the Alamo Bowl matchup against Oklahoma State on Dec. 29, “and will be promoted to the full-time coordinator.”

Kish, 56, also coaches the linebackers and is one of the team’s best recruiters. He is the only assistant left who has been with Stoops for his entire time at Arizona, joining the staff in December of 2003. Defensive line coach Mike Tuiasosopo was also an original member of Stoops’ coaching staff, but he also left earlier this month for Colorado.

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With plays like this, Arizona held Iowa to its season-low for yardage/Photo by David Kadlubowski, Arizona Republic

Worried about Arizona’s quarterback situation? Will some positive defensive numbers make you feel better?

The Wildcats are at the halfway point of the regular season and the unit that everyone was worried about in the preseason — the defense — ranks seventh in the nation, allowing 13.3 points per game. Arizona is 10th in total defense at 284.3 yards allowed per game.

“So far, so good,” co-defensive coordinator Tim Kish said after Monday’s practice.

“I really feel like we have a group of guys who like playing football together, and they have a real passion for the game. We’re preparing well, and that will be a major issue for us this week to prepare for these guys.”

These guys would be Washington, featuring senior dual-threat quarterback Jake Locker, sophomore running back Chris Polk (on his way to his second 1,000-yard season) and big-play receiver Jermaine Kearse (19 touchdown receptions in 30 career games).

It’s still tough to shake away the memories of Oregon State quarterback Ryan Katz having the game of his life against the Wildcats, passing and running at will two weekends ago, but check out how the Wildcats have done against other foes this season:

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