Arizona lost to West Texas State in 1961, to Hardin-Simmons in 1958 and even to Marquette in 1953. Things changed.
West Texas State became West Texas A&M and dropped to NAIA status. Hardin-Simmons and Marquette eliminated football altogether.
So it officially stands that the last time Arizona lost to a FCS team — that’s 21st-century lingo for small-college football — was to Montana in 1938. That was in an era so long ago that Arizona had star players nicknamed “Nosey” and “Hoss” and “The Eel.”
On Saturday night at Arizona Stadium, the Wildcats could’ve used a Hoss and an Eel. They could’ve used a Bruschi and a Scooby, too.
The Wildcats played so poorly for so long, trailing Grambling State 21-3, giving up 303 yards in the first half, that you scoured the record book looking if there had ever been a more damaging loss in school history.
Can you imagine the implications had Arizona not rallied to win 31-21?
Here’s some context: Grambling State has defeated one FBS school — that’s Big Boy football — in history. One. It beat a 1-10 Oregon State team in 1975 and a 3-8 Beaver team in 1985. Until Saturday night, the Tigers were 0-7 this century against FBS teams, losing by a cumulative 352-53.
And yet for 30 minutes the Tigers were bigger, stronger, faster and smarter. And, no, we’re not talking about that fabulous Grambling State marching band.
It was the worst half of football played by an Arizona team since it trailed UCLA 42-3 in 2012 (and lost 66-10).
Who wasn’t ready to panic or abandon ship?
The Zona Zoo went from a near-capacity crowd of about 9,000 in the first half to maybe 3,500 in the third quarter. It went from The Zoo to The Morgue just like that.
One of the beautiful things of college football is its recuperative power. A week after losing that 66-10 game at UCLA four years ago, Arizona pole-axed Colorado 56-31 on an afternoon Ka’Deem Carey set a Pac-12 record by gaining 366 yards. The UCLA game was forgotten.
Will Saturday’s game similarly be deleted from memory?
Not likely.
There is no mulligan, no do-over, no forget-it-and-move-on forgiveness if you stumble against Grambling State or any FCS team. If you spend much of the night being exposed as a team with (a) little defensive firepower and (b) quarterback troubles, you are seriously flawed.
Saturday was meant to showcase Arizona sophomore quarterback Brandon Dawkins, who certainly passes the eye test, a 6-foot 3-inch, 210-pound athlete who is probably the most highly acclaimed Arizona QB recruit since, uh, ever, or close to it.
Dawkins passed for 8,362 yards and rushed for 1,367 at SoCal prep power Oaks Christian and, strictly on stats and measurables, was more highly sought than Nick Foles, Willie Tuitama and even injured Anu Solomon.
But the better QB at Arizona Stadium on Saturday was Grambling State’s DeVante Kincade, an Ole Miss transfer, who completed the first half with 15-of-19 passing for 193 yards and two touchdowns.
Dawkins struggled with his accuracy and his offensive line didn’t give him much of an option to simply hand off and get out of the way. Ordinarily, you’d expect a Pac-12 team to play vanilla offense against a team from the SWAC, run the ball between the tackles and empty the bench.
But at halftime, UA tailback Nick Wilson averaged just 2.8 yards per carry on 10 rushes. The Tigers controlled the line of scrimmage. That’s not a promising development when you’ve got USC, UCLA, Washington, Stanford and Utah on the schedule before Halloween.
Is this being too negative?
Should more ink be spent detailing Arizona’s second-half rally?
Whether he’ll admit it publicly or not, no one is more steamed than UA coach Rich Rodriguez, a noted perfectionist. He blew his stack in the first quarter when the Wildcats failed to get the proper receiving group on the field, forcing a timeout on second-and-10 in the first quarter. RichRod and receivers coach Tony Dews then had an uncomfortable, face-to-face confrontation on the sideline.
That outburst was triggered as much by the UA’s first possession, in which it had a busted pass pattern, a penalty for an illegal receiver downfield, and failed to get a first-down on a fourth-and-short gamble.
The tenor was set. Nobody would be going home early from work and kicking back for the week.
In its first win since December, Arizona created significant doubt about its future on Saturday. Can Dawkins play winning football until Solomon returns, whenever that may be? Will the UA’s talent-deficient lines, offense and defense, be able to hold up against Pac-12 teams?
And will there be enough interest in Saturday’s late game against Hawaii to even draw 40,000 fans?
In the second half, Grambling State didn’t give in, it just, inevitably, gave out. It will move on to Saturday’s game against Jackson State believing it found something in Tucson that can be parlayed into a SWAC title and the FCS playoffs.
Arizona won’t be as clear. Was its powerful comeback against the Tigers currency to be used for the meat of its schedule? Or was it simply fool’s gold?
