On the Sidelines

Arizona Daily Wildcat Craig Degel

It's Renaissance time for the Arizona football team and its a two-part project.

First, the good people at the Fiesta Bowl have to invite Kansas State to their New Year's Eve party so that Oklahoma State doesn't come to the Insight.com Bowl and the Wildcats get the at-large invitation.

Then, it is on to part two.

I heard some people complaining the other day that Arizona shouldn't go to the Insight.com Bowl because its cheesy to play in your home stadium for a bowl game.

A bowl is a bowl folks and UCLA has played in its home stadium on Jan. 1 quite often.

Here's my idea, though:

Root like hell for New Mexico to pull off what would be a pretty big upset and beat Colorado State.

If the Lobos beat Colorado State in the Western Athletic Conference title game on Saturday, they will go to the Holiday Bowl in San Diego, Calif., while the Rams would come here.

The Rams are ranked 18th in the country and are the owners of a nine-game win streak.

Bring 'em on.

The Arizona football team needs to exercise some demons. The cleansing started on Friday with the Wildcats' 28-16 win over the Sun Devils and it would continue with a victory over the Rams.

Think back to the fall of 1994. Arizona was rock solid on the cover of Sports Illustrated, ranked sixth in the country by the Associated Press and had won its first four ball games.

Then, the upset.

Colorado State came into Arizona Stadium and shocked the Wildcats in a 21-16 win thanks to Sean Moran's 77-yard fumble recovery for a touchdown.

The Wildcats have been in a funk ever since. They tumbled to 14th in the poll the following Monday and they have gone 21-19 in the three and a half years since that fateful October night when guys named Bruschi, Scurlock and Harris still roamed the defensive side of the ball.

Call me bitter but a victory over the Rams would bring some closure to this issue. We could even bring out men of the cloth to douse the Rams in holy water at midfield. Maybe we should give Billy Graham a sideline pass.

While we're at it, somebody call Max von Sydow and Linda Blair and invite them. That would be some good exorcist karma. Maybe then, the Wildcats would get a victory.

Then, the Wildcats can go 11-0 next year. Okay, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself on this. But, a 7-5 record and a victory in a bowl looks a lot better to those blue chip recruits than a 6-5 record and a third-straight year without a bowl.

I'm hungry. Pea soup anybody?

Craig Degel periodically covers men's basketball for the Arizona Daily Wildcat.