Greg Hansen: 'Mr. Football' on rock bottom, the Mora mistake, RichRod's recruiting

Dear Mr. Football: Has Arizona ever been an underdog to a team worse than 1-5 UCLA?

A: In 2002, the Wildcats were a 1-point underdog to a Stanford team that would finish 2-9, whose only victories were against San Jose State and a John Mackovic-coached Arizona team whose players three weeks later held a meeting-mutiny with UA president Peter Likins. “It’s rock bottom,’’ said UA linebacker Joe Siofele on a day Arizona lost 16-6 and quarterback Jason Johnson was sacked six times by a Stanford team that would then go 0-5 to finish the season.

Dear Mr. Football: So is this Rock Bottom II at Rock Bottom U?

A: This should just be the beginning, the break-in year for Kevin Sumlin, and he’s fully versed in the first-season blues.

In Sumlin’s first season at Houston, 2008, the Cougars also opened 3-4 and were then routed in Game 8 by a crummy Marshall team that would finish 4-8.

One significant difference: In ’08, Sumlin had some breathing room after his Game 8 loss to Marshall, playing consecutive games against Tulane, Tulsa, UTEP and Rice.

This time when Sumlin looks down the road he sees Oregon, Washington State, and Colorado, whose combined record is 15-3.

Dear Mr. Football: How often has Arizona played two QBs from Tucson in the same game, as with Rhett Rodriguez and Jamarye Joiner last week?

A: It last happened 42 years ago, 1976, at UCLA, of all places — and it imploded.

Jim Young’s Wildcats were in the process of stunning No. 5 UCLA, leading 3-0 with 22 seconds before halftime. As Arizona lined up for a field-goal attempt, Young ordered a fake, with No. 3 quarterback Bill Baechler, a senior from Palo Verde High School, as the holder.

Alas, Baechler’s throw was intercepted and returned 75-yards for a touchdown by UCLA’s Levi Armstrong. Young was so rocked by the turn of events he famously fell to the ground and pounded his fists on the turf at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

It got worse. UCLA rolled to a 37-9 victory and Young later inserted freshman Jim Krohn from Amphitheater High School, who would become the UA’s starting quarterback for most of the next three seasons. Baechler, once a top prospect, required major knee surgery in 1973, missing the season. He completed just one of five passes in his UA career; playing much of the ’76 season as a backup safety.

Dear Mr. Football: Is there some sort of Tucson curse with quarterbacks at the UA?

A: Before the Krohn-Baechler 1976 game at UCLA, the last time Arizona used two Tucson quarterbacks in a game was 1947.

The dual use of Fred W. Enke, who had returned from three years of World War II duty a year earlier, and fellow Tucson High graduate Sol Ahee had a foreboding beginning.

Enke began ’47 training camp as second string, but Ahee, the likely starter, was diagnosed with dysentery and hospitalized. He missed three weeks. But in the ’47 season opener, Enke became a local legend, earning the nickname “Firin’ Freddie Enke’’ in a 27-7 victory over Wyoming. He would go on to an eight-year NFL quarterbacking career.

Ahee returned in October and split time with Enke in a victory over Montana. It was Ahee who was a star later in the season, directing a comeback victory over Texas Tech.

Unfortunately, Enke had just two years of eligibility after his long stint in the Army; Ahee was dismissed from the team in 1948 for what coach Miles Casteel said were "attitude issues."

The next Tucsonan to start at quarterback at Arizona, 1954, was Amphitheater High grad "Fearless" Freddie Schuh. After that, a Tucson prep quarterback didn’t play for Arizona until Krohn/Baechler in the '70s. Another long period followed until Rincon High School's Billy Prickett, a former walk-on, played in 1991 at, of all places, UCLA, in a 54-14 loss.

Dear Mr. Football: How did UCLA’s football decline take place?

A: The Bruins made one of the four worst coaching hires in the 40 years of Pac-10/12 football, selecting hot-tempered Jim Mora after he had been fired by the Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks.

Why hire someone who has been fired as a head coach multiple times? Hello?

The Bruins are this century’s most underperforming football school in the Pac-12. They have had 11 seasons of 7-6 or worse, and finished in the top 10 of the final AP poll just once in that period. Given the vast recruiting resources of Southern California, it’s astonishing that UCLA has been so average, or below.

And it’s not that the Bruins don’t have talented players. Since the Pac-12 expanded in 2011, UCLA leads the league with 21 NFL draft picks. USC has 19 and Stanford 17. Poor li'l Arizona has just three, fewest in the league.

Dear Mr. Football: Who joins Mora as the four worst Pac-10/12 coaching hires of the last 40 years?

In no particular order, here are Mora’s buddies in ineptitude:

1. John Mackovic, Arizona, 2001-03. An abrasive personality, Mackovic went 3-14 in the Pac-10 before being fired on Sept. 28, 2003. The underlying theme with Mackovic was always that he had been fired by Texas. How do you mess up the Longhorns and expect to win at Arizona?

2. Paul Hackett, USC, 1998-00. In his only three seasons as a head coach, at Pitt, Hackett had gone 12-20-1. But since he had been a former USC quarterbacks coach in the glory years, and was a longtime NFL offensive coordinator, Hackett was the odd choice at USC. He went 19-18 and was fired.

3. Tommy Holmoe, Cal, 1997-2001. The Bears selected Holmoe even though he had no head coaching experience. He was an assistant for Bill Walsh’s Super Bowl teams with San Francisco but went 16-39 at Cal, including a 1-10 final season in 2001. He is now BYU’s athletic director.

Dear Mr. Football: How did Arizona get in a place where it is an 11-point underdog to a 1-5 UCLA team?

A: On letter-of-intent day, 2017, Rich Rodriguez began a press conference by reading from a script the names of 16 players he boasted would help restock the program and lead to better football.

"We’re not done," he said. "This is just the start of it."

Instead, it was the beginning of the end.

It was painfully obvious RichRod was not familiar with many of the names he read that day. All were walk-ons. It was a not-so-brilliant ploy to camouflage the school’s weak recruiting year.

One of the names RichRod read that day was Azizi Hearn, a defensive back at Oceanside High School who, it turns out, has a terrific life story. Hearn lived in Dubai for several years and traveled to seven countries throughout Africa and Europe before his family relocated to the Oceanside area.

He played under former Sahuarita High School head coach David Rodriguez, who was a top coach in Southern Arizona, going 36-9 in four years before moving to California. Thus the connection to Tucson.

Of the 16 names RichRod read that day, Hearn is the only one to play a significant amount of time. He returned a fumbled interception for a touchdown to help beat Cal two weeks ago.

The other names RichRod read included Ironwood Ridge’s Ken Samson Jr., Mountain View’s Isaiah Lovett and Tucson High’s D.J. Hinton.

None are part of the UA football program today. The help RichRod promised has not arrived.

UCLA 31, Arizona 13.