Rich Rodriguez is paid about $9,589 per day to make the bottom-line decisions for a football program with a budget of about $30 million.
Sometimes they don’t go so well, even for a coach paid about $3.5 million a year. Sometimes those calls seem to be worth about 30 cents.
On fourth-and-goal at the Washington 2-yard line early in the second quarter Saturday, leading the No. 9 Huskies 7-0 — gathering momentum that seemed to put Washington in a stupor — RichRod made the bold call to go for it.
Freshman J.J. Taylor, who is about 5 feet 6 inches and 165 pounds, ran up the middle in a tight box against three Washington defensive linemen who are listed at 332, 321 and 318 pounds.
Elijah Qualls, who is 6-1 and 321, mashed Taylor for no gain. No score.
Oh, how the Wildcats could’ve used a field goal in that situation.
But football is a game of second chances, and with 17 seconds to go in regulation, the Wildcats scored on a pass to tight end Josh Kern. That made it Washington 28, Arizona 27.
Many of those who remained from an announced crowd of 48,747 pleaded for Arizona to go for it. Isn’t that RichRod’s reputation? He’s an innovative, punch-you-in-the-gut-before-you-punch-him coach who has made “Hard Edge” his calling card.
But this time, J.J. Taylor was sitting on the bench near a set of crutches; he had broken his ankle after 19 early carries, swarmed by the Huskies defense time and again. This time RichRod didn’t even discuss the possibility of going for a two-point conversion to boldly win the game.
UA kicker Josh Pollack sprinted onto the field even before Kern had tossed the ball back to the referees. He kicked the tying point and the crowd hushed.
RichRod would play for a tie and push all of his money into the pot.
Oh, how he could’ve used that field goal in the second quarter. Oh, how he could’ve used three more yards with 17 seconds remaining in regulation.
A few minutes after 11 p.m., having lost to Washington 35-28, Rich Rod said that Arizona “didn’t play well in overtime.”
He gave a one-word response — “nope” — when asked whether he considered going for two.
In an uneven game, Arizona played well enough to win, and Arizona also played poorly enough to lose. So did the Huskies.
But in the end, losing to the Huskies will be viewed as a colossally wasted opportunity. This wasn’t losing to BYU in some neutral field, season-opening nonconference game in Glendale. This one sticks with you, muting the dazzling emergence of sophomore quarterback Brandon Dawkins.
Being as short on size and talent as Arizona is, especially on defense, you wonder when the Wildcats will have another chance to beat a Top 25 team. Or any team.
Dawkins outplayed Washington’s ballyhooed Jake Browning, running 79 yards for one touchdown in which he came off as someone who could win the Pac-12 championship in the low hurdles, and somehow escaping the grasp of Washington lineman Vita Vea in the final three minutes of regulation, tossing a 54-yard completion to Shun Brown, putting Arizona in position to win or tie the game.
When asked by the Star’s Michael Lev if he would rather have gone for a winning two-point conversion, Dawkins said he has “confidence” in RichRod’s decisions.
What did you expect him to say?
What Saturday’s game proved more than anything is that the pre-conference weeks of college football are often misleading and an unreliable gauge of a team’s ability.
The Huskies so thoroughly dominated three outmatched opponents that some analysts began penciling them into the Rose Bowl, or something higher. Browning was posted onto preliminary Heisman Trophy lists, and the Husky defense was compared to the great “Purple Reign” national co-champs of 1991.
None of that appears to be reality.
On Saturday, the Huskies looked much closer to last year’s 7-6 squad than a world-beater. And Arizona was, at times, so effective that you could picture the Wildcats winning six or seven games and qualifying for the bowl season.
What was puzzling was that Arizona’s offense alternated between exceptional and inept from quarter to quarter.
Dawkins completed his first 11 passes and then went 0-for-6 as Arizona gained just 12 yards in the third quarter.
It was like your laptop being seized by a virus that not even the guys from IT can fix. And then just as suddenly, after six consecutive possessions that didn’t gain a single first down, Dawkins was electric, leading touchdown drives of 66 and 75 yards to tie it at 28.
Football is such an unpredictable game. Two years ago on the same turf, Washington coach Chris Petersen was vilified when he mismanaged the clock in the final two minutes. The Huskies fumbled and, presto, Arizona won a 27-26 game on a last-second kick.
On Saturday, Petersen basically stayed out of his own way and let RichRod determine the finish.
RichRod and Petersen both use the term “OKG” — Our Kinda Guys — to refer to their team and for recruiting purposes. Petersen insists he was first to use the OKG term years ago when he coached at Boise State.
Three weeks ago, Petersen filed a copyright for use of the term OKG through Chris Petersen Enterprises LLC.
Late in regulation Saturday night, RichRod would’ve liked to copyright a new term for his use:
OMP. One more point.
