Editor’s note: Throughout this fall without Pac-12 football, the Star will revisit Arizona Wildcats games that were significant for one reason or another.
Sept. 8, 2012: Cats emerge ahead of schedule
What went down: Expectations were tepid for the first season of the Rich Rodriguez era, and a 24-17 overtime victory against Toledo in his UA debut didn’t exactly send them soaring.
Star sports columnist Greg Hansen, in his “Mr. Football” column, predicted a defeat in Week 2 against No. 18 Oklahoma State.
“Beating the Cowboys has never been part of the equation in RichRod’s first season,” Hansen wrote. “If the Wildcats play relatively well, keep Matt Scott healthy and don’t lose 84-0, it’ll be a small victory.”
The 84-0 score was a reference to the Cowboys’ 2012 opener, in which they defeated Savannah State by that count. It wasn’t that far off the 73-24 margin from OSU’s pair of victories over Arizona in the 2010 Alamo Bowl (36-10) and Week 2 of the ’11 season (37-14).
When the Cowboys raced to a 14-0 first-quarter lead in Round 3 at Arizona Stadium, it felt like more of the same for the Wildcats. No one could have foreseen what happened next.
Arizona scored the next 30 points and put the game away in the fourth quarter, rolling to a 59-38 upset.
Scott, finally getting a chance to be the starter, accounted for 375 yards of offense and three touchdowns. Sophomore tailback Ka’Deem Carey rushed for 126 yards and a career-high three scores.
Arizona took full advantage of OSU’s many mistakes, posting a plus-4 turnover margin that was the Wildcats’ best since 2008. A forced fumble and recovery by UA linebacker Jake Fischer fueled the first-half comeback, and Jonathan McKnight’s 48-yard interception return for a touchdown in the fourth quarter thwarted a would-be Cowboys rally.
Safety Jared Tevis runs back an interception against Oklahoma State at Arizona Stadium, Sept. 8, 2012.
From the archives: As mentioned, Hansen was among the legions who didn’t see this coming. Below is some of what he wrote under the Star’s banner headline: “Cats corral Cowboys.”
The UA was so full of fight Saturday night, so feisty, that as the Wildcats celebrated a touchdown and a 23-14 lead over Oklahoma State, offensive line coach Robert Anae began shadow boxing on the 35-yard line.
It was timely and symbolic, a figurative message that after embarrassing losses to the Cowboys in 2010 and 2011, and after falling behind 14-0 Saturday, the Wildcats were no longer going to lie down. …
At one point, scoring 30 consecutive points, Anae and the Wildcats did everything but deliver a knockout punch. That would come in a flurry of second-half touchdowns.
Only 45,602 bothered to show up at Arizona Stadium, but this time, unlike the listless opener against Toledo, the chorus of voices from the Zona Zoo, and those all the way up in the thinly populated upper deck, echoed through the old stadium.
It’s unlikely Arizona could play any better. Not in 1994, in 1998, not ever. …
Arizona won going away 59-38, and who would’ve believed it? This type of return to relevance wasn’t expected until 2014, at the earliest.
Arizona linebacker Jake Fischer gets high fives from the fans in the Zona Zoo after Arizona’s Wildcats’ 59-38 win over Oklahoma State at Arizona Stadium on Sept. 8, 2012.
He said it: The Cowboys had trimmed the Wildcats’ lead to 37-31 entering the fourth quarter, and they were approaching UA territory when McKnight picked off OSU quarterback Wes Lunt.
“I knew it,” McKnight, a redshirt-sophomore cornerback, said of the third-and-12 play. “I knew that either the quarterback was going to get sacked, or he was going to throw it to somebody. I guess I was the one he threw it to.”
By the numbers: The Cowboys committed 15 penalties for a school-record 167 yards.
The previous mark had been 152 yards against Houston in 1970
“We shortened the field for them so many times,” OSU coach Mike Gundy said after the game.
The aftermath: If the loss in Stillwater in 2011 was the beginning of the end for Mike Stoops — who was fired midway through a 4-8 season — this victory in Tucson was the launching pad for the RichRod era.
Although there would be some stumbles along the way, including unsightly losses at Oregon and UCLA, the ’12 Wildcats would finish 8-5.
That was the first of five winning records — and bowl appearances — under Rodriguez in six seasons.
The 2012 squad spent three weeks in the Associated Press Top 25 and capped the year with a 49-48 victory over Nevada in the New Mexico Bowl.
Scott and Carey played starring roles in that game, as they had all season. Scott, a fifth-year senior who had redshirted in 2011, passed for 3,620 yards and 27 touchdowns. He also rushed for 506 yards and six scores.
Carey, who attended Canyon del Oro High School, would set UA records with 1,929 rushing yards and 23 touchdowns. He followed that up with 1,885 yards and 19 scores in 2013.
A fourth-round pick by the Chicago Bears in 2014, Carey played three years in the NFL before joining the CFL’s Calgary Stampeders. The CFL called off the 2020 season because of the pandemic.
