Arizona wide receiver Jacob Cowing, left, celebrates a touchdown by wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan during the second half of the Wildcats’ upset of No. 12 UCLA last year.

 Mark J. Terrill, Associated Press 2022

The stage-by-stage path of a rebuilding football program:

Stage 1: Helpless, hapless, hopeless.

Stage 2: Help is on the way.

Stage 3: How long will this take?

Stage 4: Happiness.

For the first time in what seems like forever, the clock didn’t strike midnight on the UA football program. At exactly 12:01 a.m. Sunday morning, Tucson time, the Wildcats beat No. 12 UCLA 34-28.

The Fox cameras showed Jedd Fisch fist-pumping joyfully. The cameras followed freshman guard Jonah Savaiinaea’s euphoric sprint across the Rose Bowl turf. And they focused on quarterback Jayden de Laura’s emotions as he squatted alone on the sideline, soaking in a dreamlike moment that once seemed impossible.

Those tears in de Laura’s eyes? It was like crying at a wedding.

By 12:38 a.m., someone posted a video of the Wildcats singing β€œBear Down, Arizona” in their rambunctious locker room. After so few victories the last four years, it’s a wonder that the UA players and coaches remembered the lyrics to the school’s celebratory song.

Arizona now enters Stage 5 of its return to relevance: Respect.

Beating the title-hopeful Bruins on their turf β€” shattering dreams of UCLA’s best season since in 24 years β€” was immediately identified as β€œa shocker.”

But was it? Over 60 minutes at the Rose Bowl, Arizona was the better team. When it needed a blocked kick, it got a blocked kick. When it absolutely needed a defensive stop, the Wildcats kept UCLA scoreless in the Bruins’ final two possessions. Who expected that? And when it needed someone to make a big play to keep a drive alive, de Laura stepped up.

Has any team in college football improved more than Arizona since losing the Territorial Cup 70-7 two years ago?

It wasn’t a shocker except to the headline writers. It was growth.

β€œI just think that we’re in the middle of a build that we’ve been talking about all year,” Fisch said in a media Q&A.

As with the progress of any rebuilding team in college football, Arizona was blessed by what you can call a smile from the football gods. Or maybe just luck.

After UCLA’s fifth-year quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson threw two incomplete passes in the final 30 seconds from the Arizona 29-yard line, the Bruins had one final chance. Star receiver Jake Bobo was open and sprinting across the back of the end zone.

The Arizona Wildcats (4-6) took down No. 12 UCLA 34-28 at the Rose Bowl, marking the first win in Pasadena since 2010.

DTR had plenty of time to gather himself and throw a touchdown pass that would’ve ruined 59 minutes and 56 seconds of Arizona’s most significant victory since the 2014 Territorial Cup.

A colleague sent me a TV screen shot of Bobo diving, fully extended, in an attempt to catch DTR’s pass. The football couldn’t have been two inches from Bobo’s fingertips. Incomplete.

Two inches. That’s the difference between a potential program-changing victory and a soul-crushing defeat.

This close: UCLA receiver Jake Bobo couldn’t quite haul in what would have been a game-winning touchdown grab on the final play of Saturday’s game. The pass from Bruins quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson skipped off the receiver’s fingertips.

The difference in the game was that de Laura was the most effective QB on the field. He completed 22 of 28 passes for 315 yards. He did not throw an interception. He was as elusive as a butterfly. Whenever it seemed as if de Laura was hopelessly trapped, he did what he always seems to do. He escaped and made a play.

Said UCLA coach Chip Kelly: β€œYou’ve got to tip your cap to him. We had him a few times but couldn’t get him to the ground. He kept so many plays alive, scrambling and staying on his feet and extending plays. A couple of them were five, six, seven, eight seconds, and that is a credit to him.”

The Pac-12 is overloaded with quarterbacks who, in another season, any or all would be a lock as the league’s all-conference quarterback. There’s Washington’s NFL-level passer Michael Penix. There’s Oregon’s Bo Nix, who until Saturday was in the Heisman Trophy chatter. There’s DTR. There’s USC’s uber-talented Caleb Williams and there’s Utah’s Cam Rising, who is as good as anybody here or anywhere.

Who would you vote for? Tough call.

But no one has done more with less than de Laura. He is a franchise quarterback and then some.

Added Kelly, who knows a thing or two about elite QBs: β€œWe ran into a really good quarterback.” Kelly added that (de Laura) β€œextended plays like nobody we played against this year and I can’t recall since we’ve been here.”

What happens next is no longer a conversation filled with dread. Arizona is surely good enough to sweep Washington State and ASU at Arizona Stadium and qualify for a bowl game. It’s no longer a ridiculous expectation.

That brings us to Stage 6 of a rebuilding football program: Don’t let up and celebrate too soon.

Beat the Cougars and Sun Devils β€” and capture a bowl victory β€”and you’ll have a chance to move to Stage 7: A winning season.

Imagine that.

Watch Now: Arizona shocks college football world with upset win over UCLA

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Contact sports columnist Greg Hansen at 520-573-4362 or ghansen@tucson.com. On Twitter: @ghansen711