Dear Mr. Football: Has Arizona’s 20-game losing streak become the target of jokes?
A: In a public appearance Thursday evening at the newly-lighted Crooked Tree Golf Course driving range, 1994 Tucson Open champion Andrew Magee was interrupted when the public-address announcer at the nearby Mountain View High School football game loudly welcomed the Mountain Lions’ junior varsity team to the field. There were maybe 30 people in the bleachers.
Magee looked toward the football field and said “Is that the UA?’’
Not that Magee was randomly picking on Arizona. His son, Campbell Magee, is a UA alumnus.
Dear Mr. Football: What are the three greatest game-deciding plays in modern UA football history?
A: One, safety Chuck Cecil’s 106-yard fourth quarter interception return to clinch a victory over ASU’s 1986 Rose Bowl team. Two, quarterback Ortege Jenkins’ 1998 somersault into the end zone, a 9-yard run, to beat Washington 31-28 at Husky Stadium with six seconds remaining, propelling the UA to a 12-1 season.
Three, All-American cornerback Darryll Lewis’ seemingly impossible, streaking-to-the-rescue-from-deep-in-the-end-zone collision with Oregon quarterback Bill Musgrave at the ½-yard line as time expired, preserving a 22-17 win for No. 18 Arizona over the Ducks in 1990, then the best Oregon team since 1963.
Darryll Lewis stopped current Cal offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave to preserve Arizona's 1990 win over Oregon.
Dear Mr. Football: Why is that 1990 play pertinent today?
A: Musgrave returns to Arizona Stadium for the first time since that game 31 years ago. He is Cal’s offensive coordinator.
In a lot of ways, Musgrave’s journey back to Arizona Stadium mirrors that of UA coach Jedd Fisch’s road to becoming UA’s head coach. Fisch has coached quarterbacks for seven NFL teams; Musgrave has coached QBs — including Michael Vick and the UA grad Nick Foles — for nine NFL teams. Musgrave is something of a QB whisperer: he was a backup QB in the 1990s for John Elway and Steve Young.
Darryll Lewis? After winning the Jim Thorpe Award in 1990 as college football’s top defensive back, he played 10 NFL seasons, including the 1995 Pro Bowl. He then became an assistant coach at Oregon State. His coaching career ended when he was sentenced to 32 months in prison in a 2006 case in which he was convicted on two felony counts of evading arrest and possession of methamphetamine.
Dear Mr. Football: Is Arizona athletic director Dave Heeke exhibiting patience with a 20-game losing streak?
A: “We’ve had a lot of wins inside the games and inside the program,” Heeke said Tuesday. “We had to take the house all the way down to the studs and rebuild it the right way.”
Unfortunately, an “inside the game” win is not a documented statistic in college football. What is it?
It was the Wildcats rallying from a 35-14 deficit at USC to “only” lose 41-34. It was Arizona edging within 24-19 of Oregon in the fourth quarter. It was Arizona leading Washington 16-7 in the fourth quarter.
There’s a catch to “inside the game” victories. Foremost, what type of effort did USC, Oregon and Washington put forth against the Wildcats? Were they coasting? Did they bring their C game instead of their A game? Did all of those yards Will Plummer accrued in the fourth quarter at USC come against a disinterested, get-the-game-over defense?
Dear Mr. Football: Given that Heeke has fired two football coaches in four years, and that UA football teams have gone 16-34 in his tenure as AD, would he know a winning QB if he saw one?
A: In Heeke’s final four years as Central Michigan’s athletic director, the Chippewas’ quarterback was Cooper Rush. Ring a bell?
Rush was the emergency starting QB for the Dallas Cowboys in Sunday Night’s thrilling 20-16 comeback victory over Minnesota. Rush threw for 325 yards, including the winning touchdown with 51 seconds remaining.
In his record-setting career at CMU, Rush threw for 12,891 yards and 90 touchdowns. Those numbers overwhelm Arizona’s career records of 10,011 yards and 67 TDs set by Nick Foles.
“Cooper was also a 4.0 student,” says the proud Heeke, who grew up in East Lansing, Michigan, which is also the hometown of Cooper Rush.
Brooks Reed sacks USC QB Mark Sanchez during the second half of Arizona's 2008 game against the Trojans at Arizona Stadium.
Dear Mr. Football: Do you have to be a five-star prospect to be good enough to someday be included in the UA’s Ring of Honor?
A: Sabino High School fullback Brooks Reed, who will be inducted at the UA-Cal game, was a three-star recruit. He was not the top prospect on the Sabercats’ 2005 state finalist. That was running back Glyndon Bolasky, who rushed for 1,773 yards and was Arizona’s Gatorade Player of the Year for football. Reed chose Arizona over Purdue and ASU, ultimately moved to defensive end, was named a first-team All-Pac-10 pass-rusher and spent 10 years as an NFL linebacker.
Bolasky also signed with Arizona, but a serious knee injury ended his career.
Earl Mitchell, who will also be a Ring of Honor recipient at the Cal game, was a three-star recruit from Houston who chose Arizona over offers from Indiana and Oklahoma State. He was considered a fullback, but became a tough-nosed interior defensive lineman who played 10 NFL seasons.
Reed becomes the ninth Tucsonan to be placed in the Ring of Honor, joining Tucson High’s Ted Bland, Fred Enke and Mike Dawson; Amphi’s Michael Bates; CDO’s Ka’Deem Carey; Salpointe Catholic’s John Fina; Palo Verde’s Mark Arneson; and Sahuaro’s Steve McLaughlin.
Of that group, Enke, Dawson, Bates and Carey were considered elite-level recruits. The others, like Reed, worked their way to the top.
McLaughlin, the 1994 Lou Groza Award winner as the top placekicker in college football, will be honored on the field Saturday. McLaughlin lives in Atlanta, where he is in the music business.
He’ll will do more than just enjoy a football game where he grew up selling soft drinks during 1980s UA games.
His college-days singing group, Pet the Fish, was to perform in a reunion concert Friday night on the open plaza at Hotel Congress downtown. Pet the Fish used to open for such prominent groups as the Dave Matthews Band.
Dear Mr. Football: Is Cal coach Justin Wilcox a rising star? Or has his defense-first program been figured out, and is about to become known as the team that lost to the school with the longest losing streak in conference history?
A: No Pac-12 coach and his staff is more familiar with Arizona than Cal. Wilcox, who was offered a scholarship by Dick Tomey in 1995 and strongly considered playing for Arizona before staying near his hometown of Junction City, Oregon, and playing for the Ducks, has coached or played against Arizona 13 times. He is 9-4.
Cal’s defensive coordinator, Peter Sirmon, also a former Oregon Ducks standout, has played or coached against Arizona nine times; Cal special teams coach Charlie Ragle was Arizona’s special teams coach from 2012-16; and Cal defensive analyst Michael Barton was an Arizona linebacker in 2016 after transferring from Cal, where he was a three-year letterman.
What’s more, Cal’s graduate assistant coach, Zach Werlinger, was a walk-on quarterback at Arizona from 2014-17.
What does all of that knowledge mean? Nothing. If the Wilcox and Sirmon of the 1990s were in Cal’s lineup this weekend, the Bears would win. Instead, two flawed teams playing on a hot autumn afternoon might fail to combine for 40 points. For the first time in what seems like forever, Arizona should have more.
Wildcats 24, Bears 20.
