Greg Hansen: Wildcats' record night against hapless CU a sure sign of progress, but pitfalls await

Jedd Fisch began the night wearing black-framed reading glasses, Mr. Professor carefully examining the small print on his play-calling sheets. Everything the Arizona coach called seemed to be genius.

Jacob Cowing was open over the middle. Dorian Singer was open on the perimeter. Tetairoa McMillan was making one-handed catches. Winning is so fun, remember?

The Wildcats gained exactly 400 yards in the first half, a school record against a Pac-12 opponent. Colorado couldn’t cover anyone.

About the only halftime adjustment Fisch made on Saturday was to put his reading glasses away. Can you imagine his instructions to quarterback Jayden de Laura? Something like: “Take your pick; everything’s a go.”

If Arizona had a fully functioning defense, the Wildcats would’ve beaten America’s only winless Power Five team 55-7 or thereabouts. But the Wildcats are still a work in progress on defense and as such the Buffaloes scored more than 17 points for the first time this season.

Final: Arizona 43, Colorado 20 in the rarest of all things in recent UA football history: a gimme.

It was the opposite of two-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust. It was flag football in the park. About the only regret the two teams had was that they don’t play a home-and-home series against one another this season, because their remaining Pac-12 schedules are menacing.

This wasn’t much of a surprise. Even Arizona’s sports information department had the foresight to make a list of “Arizona’s Recent 600-Yard Games” in its weekly game notes. The Wildcats finished with 674.

It seemed like 874.

“That was a very challenging offense and that quarterback, we didn’t slow him down,” said Colorado’s embattled coach, Karl Dorrell, who was fired Sunday. “We didn’t slow him down at all .”

The only suspense was whether de Laura could tie Tom Tunnicliffe’s school record of six touchdown passes established 40 years ago this month in a 55-7 win over Pacific. The suspense ended with 8:57 remaining on a 5-yard pass to Michael Wiley, giving Arizona a 43-20 lead.

It seemed like 84-20.

In the small-world department, I sat in the Arizona press box that night in 1982, witness to Tunnicliffe’s long-standing record. What I couldn’t have imagined was that I would someday see a group of Arizona receivers to match those of ’82, when future NFL receivers Vance Johnson and Brad Anderson both caught two TD passes, and Sahuaro High School grad Jay Dobyns, perhaps the UA’s top possession receiver of the last 40 years, caught another. (Neon Edwards caught the sixth).

But Cowing and Singer have quickly developed into two of the Pac-12’s most potent receivers, thriving in Fisch’s NFL-style passing system.

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A year ago this weekend, Cowing led historically-awful UTEP to a victory over Old Dominion, part of a stunning 6-1 start to the season. At the same time, Singer was a walk-on freshman at Arizona, sitting on the bench until he caught his first pass on Oct. 30 against USC.

No one — not Fisch, not anyone — could’ve predicted that on Oct. 1, 2022, Cowing and Singer would combine for 22 catches against Colorado (or anyone) with a cumulative 343 yards — more than the entire CU offense, 340.

Now the challenge will be in keeping Cowing around for another season as Fisch attempts to fix the Arizona defense and reach bowl eligibility.

Said Fisch: “As we reminded Jacob when he hit (3,000 career yards on Saturday), he might have 5,000 when it’s all said and done next year. Nobody’s in a rush (for him to leave).”

The only rush is for Arizona to steel itself for the next six games, a gauntlet that could be called The Super Six — Top-25 clubs Oregon, Washington, USC, Utah and UCLA, plus a suddenly imposing WSU club.

No more softies.

It had been 13 years since Arizona played against a historically bad conference opponent. In 2009, the Wildcats beat a 1-11 Washington State team 48-7 in Tucson, a fun-fun-fun evening in which Arizona was so dominant that “Bug” Wright returned a punt 86 yards for a touchdown and Travis Cobb returned a kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown.

If there was a lesson to be learned that year, it was that Arizona climbed to No. 18 in the AP poll a few days later and then blew back-to-back games in the fourth quarter and overtime against Cal and Oregon.

So long, Rose Bowl.

Enjoy the winning feeling while you can because it is often so fleeting.

This Arizona team has no reasonable chance to dream about a Rose Bowl, but Saturday’s offensive performance — de Laura was fabulous, surely deserving of the Pac-12 Player of the Week award — planted seeds that Arizona can win one or two of the six upcoming games, which didn’t seem possible 24 hours earlier.

Beating Colorado didn’t create any national headlines, but losing to the Buffaloes surely would have. A year ago, the Buffaloes hammered Arizona 34-0. There was no light at the end of Arizona’s long and dark football tunnel.

Today? Let the sunshine in.

Photos: Arizona Wildcats football rolls over Colorado, 43-20