By
Chris Martin
Arizona Daily Wildcat
New coach intends to fill stadium, improve offense
New UA football head coach John Mackovic has high expectations and goals now that he is at the helm of the Arizona football program.
Nothing is more important to Mackovic, though, than reaching the Rose Bowl.
"First of all, I want to be the best, and I want Arizona Wildcat football to be the best," Mackovic said. "What that measurement is, first of al,l we have to get to and win the Rose Bowl. This university has not been there, and that would be my number one obligation to our team, our university and our fans."
Since Arizona joined the Pacific 10 Conference in 1978, it has been the only football team not to represent the league in the Rose Bowl - the New Year's Day bowl which annually pits the Pac-10 champion against the Big Ten champion.
Former Wildcat football head coach Dick Tomey was often criticized for his failure to guide UA to a Rose Bowl during his 14-year tenure.
"(Mackovic's) game plan, and I say this because these are words that he has used, are to go to and win the Rose Bowl...that is the game-plan," UA athletic director Jim Livengood said.
To lead Arizona to its first Rose Bowl berth, the 57-year-old coach plans on adding a few wrinkles to the football program.
In yesterday's press conference announcing his hiring, Mackovic alluded that he would be chiefly responsible for running the Wildcat offense and for filling Arizona Stadium.
Livengood said in a press conference last week that one of the criteria for the next Wildcat head coach would be an offensive background.
As a former quarterback's coach for the Dallas Cowboys under legendary head coach Tom Landry, and having coached Heisman Trophy winning running back Ricky Williams at Texas, Mackovic clearly has the offensive background Livengood was seeking.
"He is exactly what the University of Arizona needs right now in our football program, in our university, in our athletic department, in Tucson, in Arizona and onward and onward," Livengood said. "He is qualified from the standpoint that we want to do some things maybe a little different and maybe explore the offensive side a little bit."
Mackovic stated that he would call the offensive plays from the sidelines but may hire an offensive coordinator for the purposes of setting up offensive meetings with players, consultation and help in practice.
"I am an offensive oriented coach - that is my background," Mackovic said. "I will be vitally involved in all parts of the program, but I do expect that I will be involved from minute to minute basis with our offense. I will call the plays, most likely."
Mackovic is also hoping that a more exciting and improved offense will help fill the stands in Arizona Stadium.
UA sold out only one of the team's six home dates this past season and had an average attendance of 49,439 people.
The average attendance number is calculated by the number of sold tickets, not actual amount of fans in attendance, and therefore is misleading because of a large amount of no-shows for games.
"(I am looking) forward to filling the stadium to the brim. I mean creating a home field that will be as attractive to our home team and as ferocious and as fearsome and as loathed as we can make it," Mackovic said. "It can be done, and it is being done in multiple other places in the Pac-10 that at one time were not quite known for their home-field advantage."
If Mackovic is able to inject life into a conservative offense and bring fans to Arizona Stadium, a long awaited Rose Bowl berth may not be too far behind for Wildcat fans.
Chris Martin can be reached at sports@wildcat.arizona.edu.
