ALBUQUERQUE β Scooby Wrightβs eye-black ran down his face, a reaction to a mixture of sweat and tears.
There was some blood too, but that was on his leg.
With less than a minute left in the New Mexico Bowl, the Pride of Arizona marching band played a tune, in sync with Wrightβs jog back onto University Stadium field.
Some Arizona staffers sang along.
βTake on me (take on me).β
Wright lined up, hands on the turf, left side of the defensive line.
βTake me on (take on me).β
New Mexico snapped the ball.
βIβll β¦ beeeeeee β¦ gooooooone.β
This was Wrightβs swan song for his swan song.
Wright was gone, past the offensive lineman, pressuring the New Mexico quarterback into a near-sack and then a mistake β a Cam Denson interception that ended the game.
Arizona won the New Mexico Bowl, 45-37. Wright, the gameβs defensive MVP, clinched it.
The junior linebacker jogged back to the sideline, smiling, and raised both of his arms. He hugged his teammates, and as the clock read 0:00, he cried.
In 2012, Wright and his father, Philip, sat in the crowd at a freezing cold University Stadium and watched the Wildcats win that New Mexico Bowl.
Back then, he was just Two-Star Scooby, unheralded, unknown, just another face in the Albuquerque crowd.
Saturday, he stood on the podium at midfield, accepting another award in his storied, if short, Arizona career, as fans loudly chanted, βOne More Year.β
Sorry, guys, but heβll be gone.
βIβm going to the NFL,β Wright told the crowd, choking up. βThank you, Wildcat Nation, for everything.β
From Two-Star to All-Star to All-American, Wright made his mark at Arizona.
βItβs been special,β his father said Saturday on University Stadium field. βEverything at Arizona, Scoobyβs loved. They took a chance on him. I know heβs real broken up. It was a really tough year for him, and fighting through it, he went out the way he wanted to.
βNow heβll just get ready for the combine, and now heβs gotta go to work.β
Wright signed Saturday night with NFL superagent Drew Rosenhaus and will soon fly to Miami to train with Pete Bommarito, the owner of Bommarito Performance Systems.
He follows a path forged by former Wildcat Rob Gronkowski of the New England Patriots, who signed with Rosenhaus and trained with Bommarito after the 2009 season.
The paperwork from the NFL draftβs advisory board told Wright that his ceiling is as a first-round pick, and NFL people have told his family that he has a good shot of being taken in the second or third rounds.
βI think Iβve accomplished everything I wanted to do in college,β Wright said after the game, βand I feel like itβs the right time.β
This from a guy that only had one scholarship offer in high school, from Arizona.
In his final game as a senior at Cardinal Newman High School in Santa Rosa, California, Wright hurt his ankle. By then, other schools had finally noticed him, and so the Cardinal Newman school office became inundated with phone calls.
Coaches from across the country hoped that Arizona had pulled its scholarship offer, that they had a shot at Two-Star-Scoob.
They didnβt.
Scooby Wright was a Wildcat.
βWe thought he was going to be a great player when we signed him,β UA coach Rich Rodriguez said. βI donβt know how many other people did. We thought it.β
For his swan song, Wright showed flashes of the Scooby of old. He had 15 tackles, which heβs only accomplished twice in his career, with 3.5 tackles for loss, and the last two βScoobySacksβ of his Arizona career.
The 2015 season didnβt go the way Wright, or anyone, though it would. He hurt his knee in the first quarter of Arizonaβs first game. He rushed back for a primetime game against UCLA in Week 4, and suffered a foot injury. That marked his last game action until Saturday.
Wright played just three games for Arizona this year and finished with 23 tackles and two sacks. A year ago, he amassed 164 tackles and 15 sacks, was a consensus All-American and won the Nagurski, Bednarik, Lombardi and Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year awards.
Wright took the injury hard.
βIt was hard,β said Cody Ippolito, Wrightβs best friend and fellow UA linebacker. βThe first thing that happened was, Scooby came up to me and started crying.β
Added his father: βNobody expected him to get hurt, and we werenβt sure about him coming back and playing in this game. Then he did, and did well, just what he wanted to do, and the way he wanted to do it.β
A few days before Saturdayβs New Mexico Bowl, Philip Wright scrolled through his phone, pulling up pictures from throughout his sonβs career.
He stopped at one of a young Scooby sleeping in a stroller, eye-black painted on his face, wearing shoulder pads under a San Francisco 49ers jersey.
βHeβs been thinking about it since he was 7 years old,β Philip Wright said. βHe wanted to play in the NFL. Now heβs getting his shot.β
Like the song, heβll be gone.
Now, heβll take on the NFL.
