Five years into his college football career, Arizona safety Jared Tevis has learned more than the 3-3-5 alignment and the pass code to the players-only lounge at the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility.
Tevis understands that if you make a game-changing play, you don’t flip the ball to the line judge. You keep it. You lug it with you through life to remind you of your final homecoming game, a 38-20 thumping of Colorado.
Saturday night at Arizona Stadium, Tevis lined up for his favorite play, a safety blitz, with the game tied at 7. He sped unimpeded through a gap in the Buffaloes offensive line, with only CU quarterback Sefo Liufau between him and glory.
Tevis separated Liufau from the football, picked it up on the Colorado 31-yard line and wouldn’t let go. As he ran to the sideline, ignoring the referees, Tevis was greeted by UA equipment manager Wendell Neal.
Neal wanted the ball. Tevis didn’t want to give it to him.
But Neal knows how it goes. He told Tevis the ball would be in safe hands, with a team manager, and that he would get it after the game.
By then, when Neal handed the ball to a manager, it became something of a juggle. The manager was already holding a football that UA safety Tra’Mayne Bondurant had recovered — from Liufau — and returned 22 yards for Arizona’s first touchdown.
If your equipment manager is juggling “game balls,” it is a good night.
The Wildcats not only turned Tevis’ sack/fumble into a go-ahead touchdown, they later scored after safety Jourdan Grandon intercepted a pass and, to fully put the game out of reach, scored again after seldom-used cornerback Devin Holiday intercepted another Liufau pass.
You don’t have to be a math wizard to get the numbers right. Arizona scored more points, 28, off of CU mistakes, than the Buffaloes scored all night.
There’s a good reason Colorado is 0-7 in the Pac-12 this year and a mind-sapping 2-23 conference record dating to the 2012 season. It makes mistakes, killer mistakes.
“The turnovers helped our field position,” said UA coach Rich Rodriguez. “I think it was the difference in the game.”
Until Saturday, Arizona’s defense had been given significant credit for one victory, at Oregon. The other five were traced mostly to RichRod’s up-tempo offense, his game-planning, the resourceful play of quarterback Anu Solomon, a stable of big-play receivers and a mature offensive line.
But against Colorado, it was defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel’s defense that struck the deciding blows, one after another, until nose tackle Sani Fuimaono put a jackhammer move on Liufau with 9:50 remaining in a 24-20 game.
Fuimaono hit Liufau with such force that he hurried his throw to an open receiver, standout Nelson Spruce, who had turned Holiday inside-out; Spruce looked to be set for a catch-and-run first down.
Game on.
But Liufau’s throw was so off target that Holiday had time to gather himself, turn around and — voila! — the ball was right in his hands.
Game over.
The Buffaloes clearly haven’t learned how to hold on and grasp winnable games the way RichRod has at Arizona. The Wildcats are an impressive 23-12 in his rebuilding project. By comparison, Colorado painfully lost taut finishes to Cal, UCLA and Oregon State this year. And it didn’t take much imagination to picture the Buffaloes winning Saturday at Arizona Stadium.
They just haven’t figured out how it goes.
Maybe Solomon isn’t an all-star, or a future NFL talent, but he was interception-free, fumble-free, and he ran for a career-high 115 yards, making the proper zone-read calls all night.
Is that what coaches call a clean game? Isn’t that what Colorado most lacks?
Alas, there are no more Colorados on the schedule. RichRod referred to the Washington-Utah-ASU finish as a “bowl ladder.”
Each step up the ladder becomes more difficult. Beating Colorado was like beating the No. 4 pitcher in a baseball team’s rotation. You get hittable pitches and keep the ball in play.
And the more you keep the ball in the play, the more the other guy is likely to do something like fumble, or allow a sack, or throw an interception that forever alters the game.
In a game of 160 plays Saturday, four of them turned it into an Arizona victory. Tevis’ sack/fumble. Bondurant’s fumble return, made possible by a sack-and-fumble by reserve safety Anthony Lopez. Grandon’s interception (another successful blitz-call by Casteel). The finisher was Scooby’s hit on Liufau.
That’s a crushing 0 for 4, especially for a young team like Colorado that was missing three injured defensive starters.
The little things betrayed Colorado as much as the Big Four turnovers. Here’s an example: With a Colorado fourth-and-one at Arizona’s 42 late in the third quarter, trailing 24-20, with the game’s momentum at stake, Buffaloes freshman guard Gerrad Kough moved before the snap, a false start. The Buffaloes had to punt. They never crossed into Arizona’s half of the field the rest of the game.
“Our guys, they love to play, they love to compete, and they don’t panic,” said Rodriguez. “Adversity is going to strike in every game. We’re not — and I’ve said this many times — we’re not good enough to play poorly and win.”
On Saturday it was Colorado that played poorly — and lost.
At 7-2, Arizona continues to play for high stakes. So far, the 2014 season has been a best-case scenario for the Wildcats, but for the rest of the season, they will be playing without a safety net.
