Things you never used to hear in Pac-12 football:
• Colorado is undefeated.
• Colorado might win the Pac-12.
• Colorado has a better quarterback than Oregon.
But in the unpredictable Year of Our Lord 2020 — Coastal Carolina might be better than any team in the Pac-12 — the Buffaloes check the boxes on all of those things.
Here’s the problem: Colorado was the singular team on Arizona’s schedule that the Wildcats figured to beat.
As Arizona lost its 11th consecutive game Saturday night, 24-13, the Wildcats did not score on their final nine possessions. Really. Six punts, an interception and two fourth-down plays that blew up near the goal-line.
Maybe that’s the way it goes against Alabama or Clemson, but 13 points against Colorado? An 0-for-9 streak attempting to score? C’mon.
Maybe 13 points was enough to win football games in the 1990s, but those days seem as long ago as the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Since 1994, Arizona has won a single game when it scored 13 points or fewer — a 10-9 victory over Cal in 2010.
That’s once in 317 games. No player on this Arizona roster had yet been born in 1994.
As much as this losing streak is about Arizona’s porous defense, it’s also about its impotent offense. It’s both. It’s everything.
Nothing typifies Arizona’s inability to win a winnable game — a more opportune UA team would’ve swept USC and UCLA — than when running back Michael Wiley broke away for what looked to be a 38-yard touchdown run late in the third quarter.
But he stumbled, lost his balance and fell at the CU 5. Self-tackleization. Three plays later, Colorado intercepted a poorly-thrown pass.
Arizona trailed 21-13. It seemed like 21-0.
After Saturday’s game, Arizona senior running back Gary Brightwell said “we’re locked in right now” and tried to put a positive face on a season gone wrong. His teammate, defensive lineman Roy Lopez added “a lot of these games, we should’ve won.”
Colorado Buffaloes wide receiver La'Vontae Shenault (5) stretches all out to reel in a one handed catch against Arizona in the first quarter of their Pac12 football game at Arizona Stadium,Tucson, Ariz., December 5, 2020.
But not really.
Late in the game, the Wildcats twice got within a Usain Bolt stride of the end zone and scored no points. Arizona coach Kevin Sumlin added some context, saying “we were able to run it in the middle of the field.”
After Wiley’s 33-yard run, which gave him a career-high 127 for the night — an average of 13.8 yards per carry — he did not touch the ball in the fourth quarter.
That’s a coaching error with a capital E.
If middle-of-the-field gains counted, UA would’ve indeed ended its losing streak. It chewed up so much yardage between the 20s — almost 500 yards — that it seemed like Brightwell and Wiley were doing a strong impression of Ka’Deem Carey’s school-record 366-yard rushing day against Colorado in 2012.
But even as productive as Wiley and Brightwell were, combining for 239 yards, they couldn’t match CU’s Jarek Broussard, who gained 301 yards, the most yards an opposing running back has ever gained against Arizona. (Old record: 288 by Oregon’s LaMichael James in 2011.)
Get this: Broussard was playing in his fourth college football game. He all but made you forget those record-shaking games UA quarterback Khalil Tate played against the Buffaloes, 122 points and three victories in three years.
The good old days.
If you thought Arizona’s losses to UCLA, USC and Washington were forgettable, the Colorado week one-upped them, if that’s possible.
It was a week of multiple opt-outs by active players and multiple decommits by recruits. It was a week of injuries to starting linebacker Jalen Harris and starting offensive lineman Jordan Morgan.
It was a week that CU quarterback Sam Noyer, starting his fourth college game, passed for only 92 yards, yet made that stand up without much suspense.
What’s left? The Territorial Cup game on Friday evening at Arizona Stadium. It is normally a game that qualifies as a giant eraser, capable of blotting out misdeeds and mishaps of previous games. But that might not be possible in 2020.
Arizona’s losing streak is now the sixth longest in league history. That just doesn’t scrub off with some strong football detergent or a cure-all victory over the Sun Devils. It puts Arizona on a dreaded list that includes:
0-15: Oregon State in 1995-96;
0-14: Washington in 2007-08; and Oregon State in 1981-82;
0-13: Cal in 2000-01;
0-12: Washington State in 1998-99;
0-11: Arizona in 2019-20.
Before he left a Zoom conference call Saturday night, Sumlin said he would use Sunday to review the Colorado video “make adjustments and move on.”
If only it were that simple.
And does anyone know if Coastal Carolina coach Jamey Chadwell enjoys desert sunsets and some good Mexican food?
