If the more talented team won every time, sports wouldn’t be much fun. There would be no upsets, no drama. USC would be champion of the Pac-12 every season.
If the more talented team won every time, Marcel Yates wouldn’t be chuckling on the other end of the phone. With Arizona set to face No. 9 Washington on Saturday night, the Wildcats’ first-year defensive coordinator was asked to name the biggest upset from his days at Boise State.
“Fiesta Bowl,” Yates said. “That was easy.”
Yates was a member of Boise State’s coaching staff on Jan. 1, 2007, when the Broncos pulled off one of the biggest shockers in college football history. Boise State stunned Oklahoma 43-42. The Broncos were seven-point underdogs. No one outside their locker room expected them to win.
Yates recalled some of the conversations between coaches and players leading up to that epic upset:
“These guys didn’t want to recruit you. These guys don’t think you’re on their level.”
“That fueled the fire,” Yates said, “to where they went out and played hard.”
You can imagine similar motivational speeches happening in the Arizona locker room this week, right up until kickoff. As of Friday, the Wildcats were two-touchdown underdogs.
Of course, you don’t have to imagine. UA coach Rich Rodriguez delivered that sermon in the immediate aftermath of Arizona’s 47-28 victory over Hawaii last Saturday.
“We’re going to play one of the top teams in the country — a team many people pick to win the Pac-12,” Rodriguez told his squad in a locker-room video posted on the athletic department’s YouTube page.
“And 99.9 percent of the people will pick them to beat Arizona at our house next weekend. So what that means … they’ve got a great football team. But we have a great opportunity.”
Rodriguez knows what the Wildcats are up against, and he knows what it takes to beat the odds. Under RichRod, Arizona is 3-1 at home against teams ranked in the Top 10 of The Associated Press poll. The last time such an opportunity arose, the UA defeated No. 10 Utah in November of last year.
This might be a taller task. Rodriguez said his NFL contacts told him the Huskies “probably have seven guys on defense alone that are Sunday players.”
NFLDraftScout.com gives six UW defenders draftable grades. Safety Budda Baker, cornerback Sidney Jones and linebacker Azeem Victor are projected to be picked in the first three rounds.
That list does not include 6-5, 332-pound, redshirt sophomore defensive lineman Vita Vea. “He may be the most gifted guy they have,” said Pac-12 Networks analyst Anthony Herron, who’s calling the game Saturday.
NFLDraftScout.com gives two Arizona players draftable grades as of now: linebacker Paul Magloire Jr. (fourth-fifth round) and guard Freddie Tagaloa (seventh round-free agent).
That’s only one ranking, of course, and draft projections change significantly between fall and spring. But the consensus is that this UW team is loaded. (Keep in mind, NFLDraft-Scout.com’s rankings exclude players who aren’t draft eligible next year. So backfield stars Jake Browning and Myles Gaskin — both true sophomores — weren’t even considered.)
“They’re the best team in the Pac-12,” said Campus Insiders analyst Pete Fiutak, who’s also the publisher of CollegeFootballNews.com. “They have an NFL-loaded defense and maybe the best head coach in the conference.”
Have we mentioned who the Huskies’ coach is? That would be Chris Petersen — the same Chris Petersen who engineered Boise State’s upset of Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.
Petersen knows what it’s like to be on the other side, so it’s unlikely his team will look past Arizona, even with a showdown against No. 7 Stanford looming next week.
Petersen brought several staffers with him from Boise, including defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski. The Huskies ranked first in the Pac-12 in total defense and scoring defense last season. They’re allowing 10 points per game this year.
“They brought that scheme to Washington with a higher brand of athlete at every level,” Herron said.
So how do you overcome that? Herron believes the Wildcats’ breakneck tempo can play a crucial role. He called last week’s Arizona game as well and was impressed with how Brandon Dawkins and the offense recharged their engines after consecutive punts in the second quarter.
“From what I’ve seen, I have no reason at all to think they can’t move the ball and score points on any team in the country,” Herron said.
Rodriguez repeatedly mentioned “execution” this week. It applies to tasks small and large.
“When you’re playing 300-pounders that are so strong and athletic, you’ve got to have great leverage,” Rodriguez said. “You’re not going to win every battle. You’d like to win more than you lose.
“But inevitably you’ve just got to execute. When a big-play opportunity is there, we’ve got to hit that. Against a team like this, you don’t get a lot of big-play opportunities. Watching the film from our last couple games, we’ve had a couple opportunities, but we didn’t execute when we had to. That’s going to be the key in this game.”
The Wildcats don’t mind being the underdogs Saturday night. It’s a familiar position. Maybe even a welcome one.
“I love it,” senior safety Tellas Jones said. “I like when people think they’re just going to run over us. We don’t think like we’re underdogs. That’s (how) the media might portray it. But we’ve got a chance with anybody. That’s how we feel.”
